COA building may not be target of shooting incident – police report

(Updated 3:06 p.m.) The Commission on Audit main office in Quezon City may not have been the target in Wednesday's shooting incident in the area, a police report said Thursday.

A police report obtained by GMA News Online said a witness, who was outside at a nearby KTV bar, disclosed that two men on board a motorcycle fired random shots into the air and at a person at a KTV bar in front of the COA building.

 

The suspects immediately fled the scene, and no one was hurt in the shooting incident, the report said.

Another witness, a security guard who was on duty at the COA building at the time, said he heard four consecutive gunshots in front of the building.

 

But according to P01 Lorenzo Villamayor of the Quezon City Police District's public information office, investigation on the incident is still ongoing and they have yet to verify the testimony of the witnesses.

 

Meanwhile, the same police report said three deformed fragment metal slugs of an unknown firearm were recovered from the COA building, the police report added.

 

"One at the 2nd floor, inside the office of Director Nilda Paras, inserted in the broken glass window of the said office and the other at the COA pantry at the 2nd floor," the report said.

 

"The other one is at the 3rd floor COA, National Government Center Office," it added.

 

The shooting incident occured after COA has released last month a special audit report on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) that implicated some lawmakers in alleged "pork" barrel anomalies.

 

For her part, COA chairperson Maria Gracia Pulido Tan said they will not be cowed into silence or deterred from doing their duty by the shooting incident at their office in Quezon City.

 

The agency has also announced that it will release in October another special audit report on the use of the Malampaya fund. Some government institutions funded projects proposed by the bogus NGOs.

 

The COA reports were used in the filing of plunder and malversation charges against businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles and a number of personalities, including Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. — Amanda Fernandez/RSJ, GMA News