HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AUDIT BY COA: Written by Ninez Cacho-Olivares Tuesday, 03 September 2013 08:00 Now we know just how Noynoy, Butch Abad of the budget department, the Liberal Party (LP) and the Commission on Audit (CoA) headed by Grace Pulido-Tan, and lately, the senatorial allies of Noynoy, have connived and manipulated the audit to the extent of merely making several opposition senators look guilty. There were at least two admissions from Pulido-Tan during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing, the first of which was the on-paper statement that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) which is now headed by Butch Abad, refused to furnish the CoA with the documents sought and the second was that the CoA special audit was a “random audit,” meaning that not all of the alleged irregularity and misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more commonly known as “pork barrel” in all regions and all senators and congressman’s pork barrel were covered by the audit. Another tell-tale sign that the CoA audit was intended to pin down just the opposition figures and make them look guilty before the public is the fact that the CoA auditors never bothered to have the named senators explain their alleged misuse of the pork barrel. It is important to note that the random survey from CoA’s documents, showed that the documents covered only P8.4 billion, or 29 percent of the PDAF released. Obviously, given the fact that the Noynoy allies are coming off as saints with their pork barrel disbursements, some 70 percent of the PDAF released did not include Noynoy, his allies, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. Their pork releases were not audited, and the major reason these were not audited was that Abad, who was already budget chief in 2010 up to today, refused to hand over the documents that would incriminate not just Noynoy’s allies but Noynoy himself. Why should Abad refuse to submit these documents? Why is there a cover-up? Check on the “random regions” the CoA had covered, Many bailiwicks of the LP allies were not touched. As for Noynoy, it is impossible that he did not have a trace of pork barrel disbursed during his time, both as congressman and as a senator up till 2010. So why, if the blue ribbon committee, headed by a LP member, if not official, along with the Noynoy allies in the Senate are these allies not demanding answers from the CoA, if, as the panel claims, it is an impartial probe and not a kangaroo investigation to demonize and pin down the non allies of Noynoy? Why aren’t they asking the right questions, such as why the report was merely on a done on random basis; why the CoA merely chose selected regions for its audit of the pork barrel disbursements; why are these so-called irregularities and misuse of the pork focused on three opposition figures, and why did Pulido-Tan hold a press conference and show a report which is neither complete, nor validated? And why are the senators calling on Rep. Rolando Andaya, the former DBM chief and not call Butch Abad and confront him with the fact that the documents that were sought by the CoA were never submitted to the audit agency? After all, it is Abad who now holds all the documents, not Andaya. Certainly auditing procedures by the CoA were not followed, and the surprisingly early press conference held by Pulido-Tan with her “judgment” of the pork misuse “horrifying” and “appalling,” then mentioning only the opposition senators. Noynoy, the LPs — especially Butch Abad — knew about the special audit and no doubt had leaked some documents incriminating the opposition senators to the yellow media. There was a leak, definitely. Yet see the difference between the reaction of Noynoy in the matter of the alleged leak of Janet Lim-Napoles’ surrender where he blasted away at the National Bureau of Investigation agents whom he said are not trustworthy, causing the NBI chief to resign irrevocably. In the case of the leak of the audit and the NBI’s leak of the whistle blowers’ affidavits, Noynoy said nothing. The yellow media had the audit report long before the selective and incomplete audit was bared. Noynoy said nothing about the leaks. But then again, Pulido Tan had already sent Noynoy the advanced special audit report, and he and Pulido-Tan appear to have covered up the LP allies and Noynoy’s pork’s misuse, which makes one wonder about the trustworthiness of the CoA as an independent constitutional body, as it is clearly partisan and Pulido-Tan, Noynoy and Butch Abad certainly did their job of covering the crimes committed by the LPs, Noynoy and his allies.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:57:43 +0000
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