There was a huge difference among the presidents of the Republic of the Philippines in the way they chose whom they appointed to the exalted posts of the commissioner and chairman of the Commission on Audit or CoA — the qualifications of the persons they appointed and the quality of their performance.
President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr., in 1975, built a strong CoA by appointing as its head a person who possessed the same sterling qualities that he possessed.
The Filipino people were hoping that what President Marcos Sr. did would serve as a model to be emulated because his appointee then, Justice Francisco S. Tantuico Jr. of the Court of Appeals as chairman of CoA, proved worthy of the honor.
Through his outstanding performance, Mr. Tantuico was globally recognized as an outstanding head of the supreme audit institution of the Philippines. The plenary of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions or INTOSAI elected him as its president in 1983, and the United Nations General Assembly elected him as a member of the United Nations Board of Auditors in 1984, the position that installed him as the father of the many good things that the state auditors of the Commission on Audit are enjoying today.
Then-president Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III destroyed the Commission on Audit by appointing persons who did not have the same sterling qualities possessed by their predecessors. President Aquino appointed Maria Gracia M. Pulido-Tan as the first woman chairperson (equivalent to Auditor General) of the Philippine Commission on Audit. She was a former undersecretary of Finance and commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.
Aquino appointed Heidi L. Mendoza as Commissioner of CoA. Both Gracia Pulido-Tan and Heidi Mendoza were qualified. Tan was a CPA lawyer while Mendoza was a CPA, a Master in Public Administration and National Security.
Aquino based his appointment of officials to sensitive positions along political lines. Gracia Pulido-Tan was a member of the Hyatt 10. Her expertise was in taxation, with very little or none at all in government auditing. She was disoriented about the constitutional function of CoA.
Mendoza was appointed based on the recommendations of civil society organizations. No one from CoA recommended her for the post.
On Noynoy’s first SoNA, Mendoza had come of age in her quest for fame and glory when she appeared in her resplendent, expensive blue dress at the Batasan. That marked the meteoric rise to the splendorous fashion of this “crying lady”, a creation of media, as she walked to the center of attraction along with the men and women in high society, unmindful of the critical view of the simple, hardworking, and dedicated career men and women of the audit commission. They found such display of sudden affluence offensive to their sensibilities for they would have preferred a commissioner who was humble rather than one who was pretentious.
Under Section 127 of Presidential Decree 1445, otherwise known as the State Audit Code of the Philippines, CoA Chairperson Pulido-Tan and her chief superintendent of audit, unconfirmed Commissioner Mendoza, were proclaimed the “two most notoriously undesirable persons in CoA” by a group of retired and senior state auditors for their repeated unjustified failure to comply with the requirements imposed by the Code “to respect, protect and preserve the independence of CoA“ (Section 126); “to maintain complete independence; impartiality and objectivity… in the performance of their duties,“ (Section 54); and to present in their audit reports “factual matters accurately, completely, and fairly“(Section 54).
(To be continued)