There is overwhelming optimism that CoA can stop the conflict between Sara Duterte and the House of Representatives.

From 1 to 31 December 2024, the decision of the Commission on Audit (CoA) governing notices of suspensions, disallowances, charges, and settlements thereof, including the implementation of said audit findings and recommendations, for once in our lifetime, will reign supreme in the minds of our head of state, our lawmakers, constitutional officials, Supreme Court justices, judges, and learned men of the academe.

In the limelight this month are the state auditors of CoA, the auditors of the world, who review the accounts and financial operations of agencies of the United Nations and the embassies of all nations on this planet. So far, all the audit works and reports of the Philippine state auditors, the world over, are appreciated and hailed as instruments of positive change and development.

At this most important moment of our time, the CoA 2023 AAR will be like an arbiter, a powerful instrument to settle controversies, including the conflict between the House of Representatives and the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, then under the incumbent vice president, involving confidential and intelligence funds.

The audit of confidential and intelligence funds is vested in the Office of the Chairman of the Commission on Audit. The Constitution vests exclusively in the CoA the power to pass in audit or disallow expenses; and the courts have traditionally, as jurisprudence shows, respected CoA on this end and upheld such actions by CoA.

Notwithstanding the Office of the President’s acquiescence to the giving of perks, the Constitution vests in CoA the exclusive mandate to allow or issue notices of disallowance.

There were cases in the past when audit reports did not explicitly impose a disallowance on specific transactions that were submitted to the court as evidence; the court would not on its own decide which transactions to strike down and punish the parties responsible for such unless the auditors provided that guidance.

If the leaders of the world and heads of embassies of all countries appreciate the findings and recommendations of our state auditors, how much more our leaders? For once in our time, let CoA play the role of both, as home guard and as peacemaker.

Filipinos in America are optimistic that President Donald Trump will treat them kindly. The following stanzas of the poem I wrote in his honor will show you how Trump pleaded for our help in 2020 when thousands of Americans were being killed by the Covid-19 virus from China.

Trump really cares.

The Chinese government and the World Health Organization

Declared zero evidence human-to-human transmission,

That people with symptoms would not spread the infection,

But both declarations turned out to be false information.

President Trump called up his pal President Duterte,

For bilateral cooperation against the common enemy;

The Philippine president was taken aback by the humility

Of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of USA.

Kasi karaming tinamaan sa kanila, maraming namatay sa virus,

Punta kayo sa US embassy, iprocess nila ang inyong visa.

Maski sino na lang nanawagan sila basta yong mga nurses,

Isang araw lang maaari na kayong lumipad pa Amerika.

(Alot of his people are infected and they may die,

He called me to allow our nurses to go to America immediately.

The US embassy will process their travel papers in one day,

So they can leave and help his coronavirus-stricken country.)

In 2020, the number of Filipino nurses in the United States increased to 150,000, four percent of the total nurses from other countries now with Uncle Sam.

Duterte said America is now part of the problem of our land; it has eased entry requirements for our health care program.

(To be continued)