President Duterte cannot exempt government agencies from auditing procedures or encourage them from defying the Commission on Audit (COA) which is performing its sole mandate of being the state auditing agency.

“The COA is an independent, constitutional body designed to check on the president and other government instrumentalities,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros said in an online press briefing.

“The president cannot exempt any agency from audit procedure, or worse, encourage them to ‘defy’ COA's jurisdiction,” she pointed out.

“Trabaho ng COA na mag-release ng mga reports, lalo na ngayong pandemya dahil mabilisan ang paggasta at napakaraming (It’s COA’s job to release these audit reports especially during this pandemic because everything is done through) emergency procurement,” she said.

Hontiveros said the President should in fact be grateful that the COA is doing its mandate, ensuring that accountability would never give way to haste, especially on the pandemic budget.

“Imbes na pigilang gawin ang trabaho nila, dapat pa ngang pasalamatan natin ang COA, dahil sa pamamagitan ng kanilang report, itinuturo nila ang mga kailangang itama at bigyang linaw ng Department of Health (DOH) (Instead of preventing them from doing their job, he should at least thank COA. Because through their report, they are able to point out which needs to be corrected and explained by the DOH),” she said.

“Akala ko ba ay hangad ng administrasyon na wakasan ang kurapsyon? Bakit gigipitin nanaman ang isang ahensyang sumusubaybay at nagbabantay sa bilyun-bilyong pisong pondo ng bayan? (I though the administration wants to put an end to corruption? Then why harass an agency that is vigilant on how government utilizes billions worth of public funds)?” she pointed out.

She also reiterated that COA’s annual audit reports are a public document and should not be kept secret.

A matter Sen. Joel Villanueva also agrees about: “The COA report serves as a diagnostic tool to determine irregularities in the operations of government agencies, in accordance with their constitutional mandate,” he said in a statement.

“COA ensures our people's taxes are spent on the right programs such as our health system. It is their responsibility to make government accountable. Their reports are public for us to check and know how the agencies are doing,” Villanueva stressed.

But right now, the lawmaker said it is imperative for the DOH to focus on implementing a “catch-up” plan to buy the necessary lifesaving equipment, pay the special risk allowances (SRA) of the country’s healthcare workers, and medicines and supplies.

“I won’t mince words. We are barely surviving the pandemic because of our health workers. If our health workers resign en masse, our healthcare system will certainly collapse,” Villanueva emphasized.