Decision 2020-184 of the Commission on Audit en banc, dated 29 January 2020, was not the work of a collegial body.
The decision affirming Notice of Disallowance 2016-009-101-(16) dated 3 October 2016, on the payment by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority or MMDA of the retention fee to William L. Tan Construction or WLTC for the design and construction of steel pedestrian bridges in various parts of Metro Manila in the amount of P6,989,248.92, was a shred of solid and visible evidence that CoA was not functioning as a collegial body.
The decision was totally devoid of careful consideration of the most fundamental issues in the case.
Senior auditors at the CoA central office who were keenly observing happenings in the Commission Proper had opined that the CoA en banc decision was a hasty reaction to the Daily Tribune report that the Commission on Audit was spending a large portion of its time promoting the Citizen Participatory Audit or CPA rather than on its constitutional mandate to post-audit and act on CoA’s audit backlog, including Commission Proper cases that were mounting to as high if not higher than Mount Apo.
Leaked reports from the CoA central office showed that the decision was prepared in a hurry by the commission secretariat together with the executive staff and “signed by the CoA chairman and the two commissioners without reading it.”
The veracity of this leak was divulged through the reaction of one of the members of the Commission Proper when he was shown a copy of the decision. When client William Tan went to the CoA central office in January 2020, he showed the CoA en banc decision to Commissioner Rolando Pondoc, pointing out to the latter his signature.
Tan asked Commissioner Pondoc about the authenticity of the decision and expressed his bitter lamentation at its contents. Pondoc expressed surprise and said that the subject of the decision and the transactions of Tan with MMDA were processed when he was not yet a commissioner at CoA.
Notice of Disallowance 2016-009-101 (16), dated 3 October 2016, signed and issued by Atty. Emilio Asi Jr., Supervising Auditor, from CoA-MMDA, was premature, capricious, and whimsical.
It smacked of a cover-up of anomalies in the Commission Proper. According to retired and supervising auditors, Atty. Asi did not strictly observe the provisions of PD 1445, the Auditing Code of the Philippines, and other auditing techniques.
According to senior officials at MMDA, Atty. Asi did not take appropriate action even though Ms. Rhodora Ugay, an Audit Team Leader, received a copy of the assailed order of the Chief of Staff, Atty. Gilbert Kintanar, on 5 May 2016. MMDA finished processing the voucher and check for payment of the retention fee to WLTC on 25 May 2016. There was an eternity of time for Ms. Ugay to have raised the red flag and for Atty. Asi to have taken appropriate action on the Kintanar order.
The Counsel, working for the interest of the client, has expressed no admission of the claim of the CoA quarter that the Kintanar order was indeed fake. On the contrary, the counsel stands by the statement of client Tan that the order was genuine and that it originated from CoA.
A former CoA senior auditor has disclosed that the Kintanar order was not the only questionable directive issued by the latter.
Said senior state auditor disclosed that Kintanar also issued a directive allowing his superior, Chairperson Pulido Tan, to enjoy a bloated retirement pay. But this was questioned by the rank and file and the overpayment was disallowed. Tan was required to refund the excess. This case bolstered the revelations by senior auditors that the chief of staff of Tan was engaged in illegal activities.
They alleged that the Kintanar cases were the mere tip of the iceberg.