Commission on Audit (COA) Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba has promised Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte that the agency would create a compendium of COA rulings and observations with annotations of Supreme Court (SC) rulings, to serve as a future guide for state auditors.
Villafuerte made such suggestion during Cordoba's recent confirmation before the Commission on Appointments (CA). Villafuerte is majority leader of the 25-member bicameral panel, which screens presidential appointees.
During the confirmation hearing, the Bicol solon proposed to Cordoba a reform that he said would help ensure the “consistency of COA rulings and observations".
“As mentioned by Senator Imee previously, merong ibang mayor, ina-allow ng COA ang ibang government transactions (Sa kapitbahay, hindi pwede (there are some mayors that are allowed by COA to have other government transactions. But they aren't allow to with their neighbors)," he said.
“As a suggestion, chair, marami namang mga decisions, jurisprudence na nag-file ng COA observation...disallowance. Ang COA nagkaso, umabot sa at malinaw naman yung decision na (there are a lot of SC decisions, jurisprudence on filing of COA observation...disallowance. COA filed a case, it reached the SC and a clear decision was reached).
"Based on that, maybe you can do a booklet and conduct seminars, briefings, updates regarding this issue, kasi importante po yan (because that's important). So based on those findings, sana magkaroon na ng consistency sa rulings (hopefully COA ruling will finally have consistency)," explained Villafuerte.
Cordoba replied: "Ito pong mga binanggit po ninyo ay well taken po (These things you mentioned are well taken)."
The chief state auditor then told the panel that, as agency’s first project under him, they will come up with a compendium of all COA issuances so all state auditors assigned to national and local government offices will be guided accordingly and thus make “uniform interpretations” of, and observations on, purchases made by public officials using public funds.
‘So, I think we have to put together a compendium of all these issuances. Tapos i-update po namin and at the same time po ay lagyan ng annotations based on decisions (Then we will update it and at the same time include annotations based on decisions)," he added.