Prior to the 1997 APEC Finance Ministers Meeting in Mactan, Cebu, we had one lower-level meeting to prepare for the event. It was our first time doing this, and no actual processes were in place regarding liquidation of expenses.
In short, the boarding passes we submitted to the staff in charge of preparing the expense reports somehow got mislaid and disappeared. And a couple of years after that, this lapse in procedure came up in a finding by the Commission on Audit (COA).
Trivial inconveniences, immense responsibility
Consequently, in my case and for everyone whose boarding pass disappeared, we had to pay the cost of the roundtrip ticket to Cebu before we could undertake another official foreign trip. At that time that would have cost us P4,500 each.
Many other similar kerfuffles have made a civil servant’s life needlessly exciting.
In the life of an ordinary government employee, the COA is like a nagging Jiminy Cricket — ever watchful, especially vigilant in guarding public coffers against unnecessary spending and wanton projects.
In recent weeks, floods have almost drowned much of Metro Manila and the provinces of Luzon. This calamity has drawn attention to alleged shenanigans between the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) and certain contractors, resulting in ghost flood-control projects.
Watchdogs asleep
The wrath of an aggrieved and flood-weary citizenry has since fallen upon the spoiled progeny of these contractors, who allegedly became stinking rich from their DPWH contracts.
But this semi-retired public servant has questions: Where was the COA? Where was their famous vigilance? What happened to their eagle eyes and keen noses for errant spending?
How could a ghost project even happen when the COA is supposed to audit the books of the agency in charge of flood control projects — to make sure they are implemented on time and within budget?
COA auditors are not supposed to be sitting nice and cozy in their air-conditioned offices. They are supposed to go on field audits, if only to make sure that the pictures documenting the progress of projects — and submitted along with bills for payment — are indeed taken from the actual project site.
Accountability gap
How could the COA be so strict about missing boarding passes and yet appear to be so nonchalant about missing projects? A missing boarding pass in 1997 meant that the amount of P4,500 must be refunded to the National Government by the accountable individual.
Using the same barometer for fidelity to public trust, COA should be issuing findings and notices of disallowance to all the persons accountable for implementing flood control projects which exist only on paper but cost hundreds of millions of pesos.
Among the basic tenets of public financial management are accountability for the use of public funds, maximized resource allocation for public benefit, and effectiveness by achieving desired outcomes in public service delivery.
If nobody becomes accountable and liable for the floods that continue to ravage our country in the absence of flood mitigation infrastructures which have been paid for, COA, the gatekeeper for financial accountability, is deemed sleeping on the job.
Then the watchdog has been defanged, its bark muted, its bite toothless.
Ms. Habitan served as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Finance where she became a career bureaucrat for 44 years immediately after graduating with a degree in Business Economics from the University of the Philippines. She has a masters degree in D
