Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez came to the defense of Ormoc City, where his wife, Lucy Torres-Gomez, is mayor, after the Commission on Audit raised concerns over the relief aid the city government received but were supposedly not properly documented.
The 2022 report to Ormoc City showed that it received in-kind donations from several groups. However, state auditors discovered that the accounting officer was not aware of the in-kind donations, despite Ormoc City sharing a photo of the donations on their Facebook page.
The only donation recorded in the book was the one-unit ambulance from Pitmaster Foundation Inc., according to the accounting office.
The same goes with NGCP’s donation of funds to Ormoc City for the victims of typhoon “Odette,” which is also not included in the city’s books.
Based on the audit report, Ormoc City obtained P350,000 in monetary donations and P20.66 million in in-kind contributions throughout 2022.
Among the donations state auditors said were missing in the books were 200 sacks of rice, 150 boxes of 1-liter bottled water from the NGCP and 12 tablets from the National Housing Authority, all of which were received by Ormoc City on January 2022.
Also missing were 46 Pitmaster wheelchairs and trash bins supplied in March of the same year by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau.
Three sets of weighing scales from Ajinomoto given on August 2022, and 1,000 white T-shirts from Panda City Merchandise Inc. owner James Sy given in February also went missing, state auditors stated.
Gomez, in response, said that the allegedly missing in-kind donations to Ormoc City are part of an Audit Observation Memorandum, or AOM, released by CoA itself.
AOM is an audit finding that a local government unit or any office or agency being audited must explain if requested by the CoA, according to the former actor.
“At the end of the report, the COA did not make any adverse or negative findings. In the first place, there could not have been any adverse conclusion because nothing irregular really happened,” Gomez said, adding that it cannot be called irregular if a comment is submitted but no adverse conclusion is made.
Gomez labeled the reports insinuating irregularities in the said transactions “malicious,” claiming they are an affront not only to the donors but also to the city government of Ormoc.
“For transparency, my administration has always tapped local non-government organizations to receive donations given to Ormoc City. These donations are not inputted in the city’s records because the city did not spend for these donations. The only role of the city government is to facilitate the transfer of the donations,” he explained.
The lawmaker stressed that Ormoc City’s openness and accountability to the public were indicated by the fact that the donations were posted on the city’s official social media platforms.