Commission on Audit probe team to focus on high-profile cases

MANILA, Philippines - Members of the newly formed joint investigating team of the Commission on Audit (COA) and the Office of the Ombudsman are now working on resolving around a dozen high-profile graft cases, including the P728-million fertilizer fund scam of 2004.           

Even after plunder and other charges have already been filed against former agriculture secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. and former undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante before the Sandiganbayan, the investigation against the other accused of involvement in the same is yet to be completed.

Also included in their priority list are more recent anomalies involving public funds like the 2009 purchase of overpriced second-hand helicopters allegedly sold by former first gentlemen Jose Miguel Arroyo to the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The special panel of prosecutors and graft investigators created last year by the Office of the Ombudsman for the preliminary investigation of the case is yet to reveal its findings and recommendations.

COA and the Office of the Ombudsman’s joint investigating team is also focusing its work on the excessive perks, privileges, and other benefits enjoyed by former officials of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) which President Aquino had exposed in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2010.

In its 2009 audit report, COA found more reason to conduct a probe after finding that the agency’s Corporate Operating Budget (COB) of more than P600 million did not even pass the review and approval of the President through the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

State auditors said P129.19 million in bonuses were approved and paid without legal basis during the same year, excluding questionable payment of P2.3 million in hazard pay, payment of representation and transportation allowance (RATA) to non-entitled officials, and violations of the salary standardization law on the payment of cost of living allowances (COLA) and amelioration allowances.

COA and the Office of the Ombudsman’s Inter-Agency Anti-Graft Coordination Council (IACC) will also prioritize alleged questioned transactions in the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), alleged irregularities in the use of Malampaya funds, and the swine program of the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor).

“We are confident that these cases will finally be resolved, the names of innocent individuals cleared, and the accountable officials meted the appropriate penalties,” Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said during the official launch of the IACC on Wednesday.

After signing a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with COA chair Ma. Gracia Pulido Tan that specifically identified some of the priority cases, Morales said the combined professional capabilities of the two government agencies will help ensure the efficient and successful filing, investigation and prosecution of cases involving graft, corruption, and violations of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

“We are constitutionally mandated in our respective capacities to ensure accountability and integrity in public office. We will thus attend to these cases with the highest degree also of accountability and integrity,” Tan said.

In a joint statement, they said COA and the Office of the Ombudsman is “deeply mindful of the ‘culture of impunity’ so often spoken of and written about, as one of the most impelling factors in the incidence of graft and corruption in the country.”

“This culture of impunity must go if we are to restore public office as truly a public trust. Complaints involving high officials of the land, plunderous misuse of public funds, and other cases highly impacting the drive against graft and corruption, must be attended to with dispatch and investigated with the highest degree of integrity, independence and competence,” they stressed.

COA chief executive staff Gilbert Kintanar and Deputy Special Prosecutor John Turalba of the Office of the Ombudsman have been named as focal persons of the joint investigation team.