Unlike their beloved secret funds, the Dutertes do not hide in secret their hatred for Commission on Audit red flags. Publicly and openly, Rodrigo Duterte spews venom against being audited.
It is among the greatest hypocrisies that he now wants Congress to be audited for its extraordinary and miscellaneous funds. Audit Congress yes, but called by a man who loathes being audited? The biblical admonition – “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” – applies flawlessly to him.
By the way, the Annual Audit Reports (AAR) of the COA for every local government unit are very extensive reports. It covers everything the LGU had embarked on for the closing year, running the gamut of agro-forestry nurseries, shuttle buses for city hall employees, de-clogging of barangay canals, classrooms and academic buildings built, day care centers, scholarships, literacy programs, Pasalubong centers, airport visitors counters, rural post-harvest facilities, one-stop shops for taxpayers, emergency response programs, purchase of vehicles, firemen suits, computers, residential care facilities for the elderly, etc. etc.
It goes without saying – nothing is spared in a COA annual report. Nothing escapes it, including areas of possible malfeasance where LGU heads tried to run circles around COA auditors.
Cielo Magno, the former undersecretary for fiscal policy and monitoring group of the Department of Finance, has published on YouTube an easy-to-follow practical guide on how to read AARs for the public’s literacy on becoming corruption watchdogs.
Now for the core of this discussion — what exactly did the Dutertes resist about being audited? It is a principal question because it indicates the possible areas of corruption and mismanagement in Duterte local governance.
For the year ended December 31, 2011 (the daughter was mayor), Davao city hall transferred funds from its current account and placed it to High Yield Savings Accounts of various banks without the authority, as the law prescribes, from the city council (section 455 [b][1][vi], RA 7160) and without the approval of the Department of Finance (DOF Department Order No. 27-05). Imagine the boldness to commit such misconduct even to the point of defying her own city council. COA advised the city treasurer to terminate such accounts.
Of the previous year’s 13 audit recommendations (2010), Sara Duterte’s city hall only fully complied with nine recommendations.
COA doubted the existence and accuracy of the city’s K9 dogs and breeding stocks because they were not properly accounted for with periodic reports. They could have existed only on paper.
Money spent for the Gender and Development Program (GAD) could not be ascertained because utilization of the funds was not closely monitored. The allocated fund was P2,350,000.
The city maintained a slaughterhouse in Ma-a, funded by a loan. However, income from it was used for the expenses of other offices instead of amortizing debt. Trolls have begun the fake news that Davao city is debt-free. That is a lie.
When father was mayor again from 2013-2016, the COA report for the year ending December 31, 2015 flagged him down for hiring 11,246 employees. Why is it known now as the infamous “ghost employees” of Duterte? All the names on the payroll were fictitious, including the addresses. There were no job descriptions. Worse, there was no proper accounting – money was paid out on yellow pad papers as receipts. This remains the Dutertes’ blatant evidence of corruption.
COA had also noted that the daily time records of all 11,246 were manipulated. Beginning 2016, daughter again succeeded father at city hall. In its 2018 year-ender report, COA noted that the ghost employees still existed under Sara. She complied with only one COA recommendation – create new hiring rules. But the money paid out – a total of P708M, persisted.
“So what if I have 11,000 ghost employees? It’s none of your business!” boasted Duterte the father on national television. “Let’s just kidnap people from COA. Let’s bring them here, then we will torture those sons of w*****,” Duterte said in an expletive-laden speech in English and Filipino, international media reported. Duterte was our shame before the world.
In 2016, when bank transaction records showed the Duterte family had a possible hidden wealth amounting to an aggregate US$44M, did he say he was open to being audited and sign a bank waiver to reveal his bank records? Hell, no. Instead he suspended the Overall Deputy Ombudsman who had pronounced that the documents he received from the Anti Money Laundering Council were “more or less” the same as the bank records attached by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in the complaint it filed with the Ombudsman. Duterte never proved Trillanes wrong till this day.
When a public official resists audit, what does that mean? Stealing public money is definitely one answer, among many other forms of malfeasance.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
