President Duterte’s persistent attacks on the Commission on Audit (COA) is an obvious strategy to divert the public’s attention away from his administration’s irregularities and deficiencies in the utilization of billions worth of COVID-19 funds, opposition Senator Leila De Lima said.

“For someone who almost always makes it a point to remind everyone that he is a lawyer, and therefore knows the law (which is not always the case), Duterte most often than not only reveals his ignorance of the law,” de Lima said in her latest statement.

“Who audits the COA? The Constitution itself provides that constitutional bodies and commissions that enjoy fiscal autonomy, viz, the Civil Service Commission, the Comelec (Commission on Elections), the Ombudsman, the Judiciary, and of course, the COA, are different from executive agencies of the government in that they are only subject to reporting on a post-audit basis,” she added.

Duterte, in his latest speech, had vowed to audit the COA and other government agencies should he be elected as vice president, claiming that he is a “victim” of COA’s audit reports.

This was after the COA recently flagged the discrepancies in the Department of Health’s (DOH) utilization of its P67.3-billion COVID-19 funds, which the Senate is now investigating.

Other than the DOH’s funds, the COA also flagged the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) for using only one percent of its service contracting funds worth P5.58-billion.

The former justice secretary said Duterte should know that the COA is not treated like any ordinary department of the Executive branch and is subjected only to post-audit.

“In short, it is not treated to the same audit scrutiny as the Executive Department simply because the bulk of the annual budget is spent by the latter, while it is only fiscal autonomy that protects the former from attacks by the political branches of government, like what Duterte is now doing to COA,” she said.

If Duterte has any problem with this constitutional set-up, the detained lawmaker maintained that his problem lies with the Constitution.

But she pointed out Duterte simply has no respect for the republican and democratic form of constitutional government set up in the 1987 Constitution.

“What Duterte is not saying of course is that his question is in fact another attack on COA, after his administration has supposedly proved the absence of irregularities mentioned in the COA reports in the Senate and House hearings on the P42-billion transfer of DOH funds to the DBM’s Procurement Service without any supporting memorandum of agreement,” she stressed.

“He is prepared to demolish institutions and destroy personalities just to get his way. This is the Duterte brand of leadership,” De Lima lamented.

“It definitely does not inspire confidence in the survival of our institutions when they attempt to work within and live up to their constitutional mandates. In order to survive, they just have to follow the whims and caprices of Duterte as the all mighty lord and leader,” she reiterated.