Philippine National Police chief Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar felt the heat of social media bashing after he was perceived to have defended Health Secretary Francisco Duque III over the P67 billion fund that was flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA).

During the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum, Eleazar was quoted saying that COA reports should not be shared to the media since these report put the agencies concerned in bad light, especially if there were no corruption that actually happened.

“Nagkakaroon po na parang ang dating is napakalaki ng kasalanan nung ahensya while ang intention naman ng COA is para maguide kayo habang hindi pa kayo pumupunta sa sitwasyon na tapos na itong auditing period ({The COA reports} make it appear that an agency committed a big mistake while the intention of the COA really is to guide {the agencies} until such time that the auditing starts),” said Eleazar.

“Kaya nga lang pinakamaganda sana huwag na sana ipa-media kagaya nung dating sitwasyon noon na diretso lang sa amin (It would be better that {these reports} should not be given to the media and instead be forwarded directly to us like the way it was done in the past),” he added.

Eleazar’s statement was criticized in the social media, with netizens pointing out that it is the Constitutional duty of the COA to make and issue such reports in the spirit of transparency.

But in the same forum, Eleazar stressed that they already learned the lessons from the past incidents of the COA flagging the PNP for budget spending.

He said that past Chief PNPs, particularly retired PNP chief Archie Gamboa, crafted several policies that institutionalized best practices in budget spending in the police organization.

Duque is currently the subject of intense bashing in the social media over the COA report which was eventually linked by critics to the alleged sloppy handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID019) by the Department of Health.

Duque, however, was defended anew by President Duterte who also ended up lashing out at COA.