COA chief lashes back at Jinggoy

MANILA, Philippines - Commission on Audit (COA) Chairman Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan yesterday lashed back at Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, whom she said asked her to appoint his preferred resident auditor for the city of Manila.

In an interview with The STAR, Tan said the senator asked for a favor after his father, former President Joseph Estrada, won as mayor of Manila.

“A senator of the Republic asking for a specific auditor to be assigned to the city of Manila. What business does he have in making that request?” she said.

The COA chief said that sometime in July, the younger Estrada called her up and asked if she could assign a specific person as resident auditor of Manila.

Tan, however, designated another person for the post.

 In another interview on GMA News TV, she expressed dismay over how such request was made by the senator, who has accused COA auditors of corruption.

During Monday’s Senate budget hearing, Estrada grilled Tan on her agency’s use of funds from the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program.

Tan defended COA’s use of government resources that were released in 2012 through the DAP, stressing the agency needed funds to upgrade its aging computers.

Part of the money worth P143 million, which was actually sourced from savings and re-aligned to finance more urgent needs, was used to buy three mabababang antas (low-grade) service vehicles for her and commissioner Heidi Mendoza’s official use.

Tan, who was grilled by Sen. Estrada during the COA budget deliberations, said she considers such attacks as part of the hazards of the trade.

She explained that when she assumed office in April 2011, COA obviously lacked equipment and even her office had nothing in it but tables and chairs.

“There was so much to do but there were no funds,” she said, noting that she asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for funding in August 2011, which was eventually released in 2012.

“At that time, we still don’t know anything about DAP. It was only later that the word DAP came into being,” she stressed, adding that COA exercises fiscal autonomy, which means that any savings can be re-aligned and used for other needs.

“That’s what happened there. We went through the process of re-alignment. It’s not as if we received money from DBM and just decided to buy a car,” she said.

Tan revealed that when she assumed office, COA was in a sorry state, with computers that still used floppy discs, which is why the bulk of the fund they got from DBM was used for upgrading the information technology equipment of the agency.

“What are we going to do, we had to do something about it,” she said, noting that on the issue of purchasing cars, she did not have a service vehicle for one whole year and had to use her own vehicle.

On the matter of her travels abroad, which Estrada also questioned, Tan admitted that she does have a lot of trips but all of them are official travel and she did not even expect that she would have to travel as COA chief.

“I have many trips and you know it surprises me because I did not expect that I would have to make all those trips while being chairman of the commission. It’s not that I like to travel, at my age it’s tiring but it’s part of the job. I have to do it,” she said in Filipino.

Though COA received DAP funds from the DBM, she said auditing the use of such funds will not affect the agency’s credibility “for as long as we work as diligently and faithfully as we can.”

As to the legality of DAP, Tan maintained that the issue is not for COA to decide as it is now before the Supreme Court.