MEDIUM RARE
By JULLIE Y. DAZA
Jullie Y. Daza
President Duterte on his frustrations with the Commission on Audit: “Ihulog sa hagdan.” Push them down the stairs.
COA Commissioner’s advice to auditors: “Avoid the stairs.”
Presidential spokesman Sal Panelo attributed Mr. Duterte’s threat to his usual hyperbolic language, a result of the agonizingly meticulous care with which state auditors study every peso and centavo spent by public “servants” who earn more than their masters. Just for the heck of it, I spent a few minutes every morning for several weeks last year trying to catch my breath as I read newspaper accounts of how COA “flagged” this and that project, everything from travel expenses to unliquidated amounts, from toilets to tax credits, that came up to billions that seemed to have just disappeared into a black hole in the cosmos.
It was almost bizarre, that every other day our scrupulous auditors had something huge to report in the period from June 27, 2018, when I started taking notes, up to Oct. 31 when I stopped, only because boredom had won over my curiosity. Next to the work of an elevator boy, that of accounting/auditing must be the least exciting in the world, an observation that Butch Valdes, a CPA and incidentally a senatorial candidate, and former COA Commissioner Fe Barin will surely not share. Mr. Valdes: “A CPA in COA is tasked to examine financial transactions and evaluate their veracity. They interpret documents to see if they are in accordance with accounting principles; that’s how anomalies are discovered.” Ms. Barin: “Auditors must go slow but they cannot keep waiting with a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.”
Based on my notes in red and purple ink, COA did not spare Malacañang or the Vice President, and named the big spenders as PNP, PCSO, GSIS, DOH, LWUA, LRTA, DILG, BuCor, PDEA (in reference to “safe keeping” of P6.8 B of illegal drugs). Manila was chided for funding 27 ghost barangays. DOTr scolded for “slow disbursement” of funds for jeepneys modernization. Seeds procured by Philcoa grossly “overpriced.” National Museum projects sans supporting documents. P1.3 B for the poor went “unused.” Building occupied by Ombudsman incomplete, uninsured. P18.6 B for 4P’s in unliquidated, unclaimed benefits. P5 B paid by NFA for maturing loans instead of food security. And more mind-boggling sums.
On Sept. 12, 2018, Digong called on LGUs to “defy stupid COA circulars.” The silence of 8,000 auditors nationwide has been deafening. Then again, “stupid” is the qualifier.