COA auditor says use of aliases for confi funds neither allowed nor prohibited

Prosecution witness Roderick Wamil, a former state auditor of the Commission on Audit-Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (COA-ICFAO), on Wednesday said that the joint circular is “silent” on whether the use of aliases for the receipt of confidential funds is allowed or not.

Wamil said this when asked by Senator-Judge Bam Aquino on the 13th day of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, if the use of codenames or aliases for recipients is permitted by the COA.

“Based on the provisions of the joint circular, it is neither allowed nor prohibited since silent po ang joint circular as to that,” Wamil answered.

He is referring to the 2015-01 joint circular of the COA, Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Governance Commission For GOCCs, and Department of National Defense (DND), which details the guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting, and audit of confidential and/or intelligence funds.

Wamil also explained that COA has no way to determine whether a recipient of confidential funds used an alias or not.

“But in general, ang tinatanggap ninyong dokumento dapat totoong tao?” Aquino asked, drawing an affirmative answer from Wamil.

(But in general, the documents you accept must come from a real person?)

Senator-Judge Erwin Tulfo then pressed the witness if it means that using aliases is allowed since the joint circular is “silent” about it.

“Hindi po (no), Your Honor. It is neither allowed nor prohibited,” Wamil said.

Tulfo further asked if COA did not ask for the real identity of the recipients of the confidential funds from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) when it conducted an audit.

“Ang focus po ng audit namin ay compliance audit. So kung ano ang provision ng circular, ‘yun po ang ginagawa naming basis for our audit po,” Wamil answered.

(Our audit focuses on compliance. So, we use the provisions of the circular as the basis for our audit.)

For her part, Senator-Judge Imee Marcos asked if COA did not call out the OVP for the use of unusual names in the acknowledgment receipts, and just focused on the supposed irregularities in the data.

“Since what we did was a compliance audit po, at wala namang provision ‘yung circular as to the use of aliases, yes po, wala po kaming findings for that,” Wamil said.

(Since what we did was a compliance audit, and there is no provision in the circular as to the use of aliases, yes, we have no findings for that.)

Senator-Judge Panfilo “Ping” Lacson then raised concern about the supposed lack of effort of COA-ICFAO in conducting an audit, considering that it has no way of determining if the signees in acknowledgment receipts are legitimate persons.

He suggested to Wamil to make a recommendation to have the joint circular amended.

“Parang bitin. In fairness to the concerned offices or persons na ina-audit, dapat kumpleto ‘yung due process ‘di ba? Kasi kung paper lang, magre-rely lang kayo sa mga submissions, hindi ninyo inaalam, you don’t go further than that,” Lacson said.

(It's not enough. In fairness to the concerned offices or persons being audited, the due process should be complete, right? Because if it's just paper, you just rely on the submissions, you don't know, you don't go further than that.)

The infamous “Mary Grace Piattos” was one of the names that floated in the acknowledgment receipts that covered the release of P125 million worth of confidential funds of OVP in the last days of December 2022.

Aside from Mary Grace Piattos, there were also names such as: Mico Harina, Nova Santos, Patty Ting, Andy Lim, Alejandro Pikit, and Feonna Biong, among others. —AOL, GMA News