Retards in the Government Special Edition: COA Annual Report

The Commission on Audit has released its annual report and guess what? Practically every bureaucracy and agency of the government is racked with financial losses and/or anomalies. Where did all the money go? How did this happen with Duterte at the helm? He ran on the platform of ending corruption and cutting red tape. So why do corruption and red tape continue to exist?

Because this is the Philippines!

Mabuhay!

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/07/08/1831586/only-34-dpwh-2017-budget-utilized

Bureaucratic bottlenecks have stalled the administration’s flagship “Build, build, build” infrastructure program. 

As a result, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) failed to utilize 66.4 percent or P440 billion of its P662.69-billion allocated budget for 2017, a report by the Commission on Audit (COA) showed.

Red tape is the cause that all this money has not been used and the Build 3x programs started? But Build 3x is the Duterte flagship program and the public is being told that this is what will make the economy and the country great! This report bares the lies of the economic managers of the Philippines.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/206786-coa-dilg-anti-criminality-projects-badac

COA, however, noted that the P90.58-million budget for BADAC regional orientations and trainings across the Philippines resulted in zero accomplishments.  

The commission also questioned the zero performance output seen in the Masa Masid feedback mechanism which was intended to streamline the handling of anonymous reports, despite a budget of P16.942 million in 2017. 

According to the COA report, the DILG failed to give information on how many of the target 1,634 local government units were actually trained.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1008279/coa-flags-p1-b-unliquidated-funding-for-asean-summit

The agency was tasked to oversee security preparations and emergency response for all Asean meetings last year. It transferred funds to 20 implementing agencies, including the Office of the President. (OP) 

Notably, the OP failed to liquidate a single peso of the P112.27 million it received. 

Other agencies whose fund transfers from the DILG were fully unliquidated were the Bureau of Immigration (P25 million), the Department of Foreign Affairs (P5.06 million), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (P3 million), and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (P1.5 million). 

Only 13 other agencies were able to partially liquidate the DILG’s fund transfers.

https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/07/09/dilg-slammed-on-transfer-of-funds-to-other-agencies/

The Commission on Audit has flagged the Department of Interior and Local Government anti-drug campaign when it transferred some P99.19 million in funds to other agencies a few days before the mandatory reversion to the government treasury. 

Since the budget transfer occurred at the end of the year, state auditors believe that there was little chance the three agencies were able to implement the anti-drug campaign programs that were required in exchange of the money. 

Apparently, COA was aware that the transfer of the DILG surplus funds was meant merely to avoid mandatory reversion to the national treasury. 

Auditors said it was “unrealistic” for the DILG to expect the three agencies to execute their respective tasks and use the funds before the end of 2017.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/659450/coa-flags-op-s-failure-to-record-unused-chopper-parts-as-inventory-item/story/

"We conducted inspection at the PAW (Presidential Airlift Wing) warehouse and found that there were uninstalled/unused aircraft spare parts and materials with a total cost of P51,525,833.54," COA said in its 2017 audit report. 

The COA said the OP chief accountant failed to include these spare parts in the Report on the Physical Count of Inventories (RPCI) required under the Government Accounting Manual. This is considering the office already spent P177 million for the maintenance of the fleet.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/206841-commission-human-rights-seminars-trainings-audit-report-2017

The Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for P3.6 million worth of cash advances which are still unliquidated, and for spending P5.4 million on trainings and seminars at hotels inside and outside Metro Manila. 

Officers and employees have P1.066 million worth of unliquidated cash advances, while special disbursing officers have P2.565 million worth of unliquidated cash advances. 

The cash advances were used for either local and foreign travels, or special projects.

Not even the high and mighty CHR, the agency which is supposed to protect the people from government abuses, is free from financial anomalies.

http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/07/09/coa-audit-report-bureau-immigration-errs-duterte-order-loses-869-million.html

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) lost ₱869 million in express lane fees after erring in the implementation of an order from President Rodrigo Duterte, the Commission on Audit (COA) revealed. 

The exact amount lost totaled to ₱869,235,102.71, starting from when the BI stopped collecting fees in June until the audit ends in December 2017. This was a 60.5 percent decrease from over ₱1 billion in fees collected in 2016.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/659853/coa-reports-office-of-the-president-spent-p14-9b-in-2017-up-534-from-2016/story/

https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/07/11/coa-chides-lrta-for-deficiencies-in-p397-88-m-contract/

The Commission on Audit has called the attention of the Light Rail Train Authority (LRTA) after finding violations of the government procurement law in its implementation of the P397.88-million contract for the relocation of informal settlers affected by the LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension Project.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/659643/coa-gov-rsquo-t-lost-p460m-in-revenue-due-to-lsquo-disadvantageous-rsquo-bucor-tadeco-deal/story/

"The annual guaranteed income, including the profit share as consideration for the use of the reserved land of the BuCor, is grossly disadvantageous to the government considering the prevailing rental rate of P50,000 per hectare in the locality, or a revenue loss for the government of P460,181,652," the COA said. 

It was on May 21, 2003 when BuCor and TADECO, owned by Davao Del Norte Representative Antonio Floirendo Jr., entered into the 25-year JVA.

For 15 years this deal has been in effect.  WHY?? 

https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/07/10/significant-losses-bared-by-coa-at-iwahig-colony/

In the 2017 annual audit report for the Bureau of Corrections, the COA revealed that an ecotourism venture and quarrying operations in the vast Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm have earned huge profits but not for the government. 

State auditors said that for ten years now, the Iwahig Eco-tourism Multipurpose Cooperative has been pocketing huge profits from the widely popular firefly watching display in Iwahig river and other tourism activities “without a contract or memorandum of agreement between the IPPF and the operator.”

TEN! YEARS!

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/207119-ben-tulfo-bitag-media-ptv-dot-deal-audit-report-2017

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/660374/coa-finds-irregularities-in-p10-17b-worth-of-pcso-funds/story/

The above stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past month the COA has released reports about anomalies in the AFP, PNP, DOT, and OVP among others. The difference this week is that all these reports spilled out at once like a great tidal wave of corruption.

Not a single bureaucracy in the Philippine government is free from financial corruption. Who is running the show? It's not the Yellows. It's Duterte and his pals. But it's not Duterte and his pals who are the problem. It's the fact that they are steeped and brewed in a corrupt political culture. No matter who runs the show these problems will persist as long as the culture remains the same.

Until elected officials see their position as a means to serve the people and the country and not as a means to fatten their pockets these financial shenanigans will continue. But don't count on it happening anytime soon. The Philippines gained independence in 1946, the first anti-corruption laws were passed in the 50's, and by the 60's corruption was endemic.

Here are two sections of President Diosdado Macapagal's second SONA delivered in 1963:

The past year has been a crucial one. We began our labor for the people under extremely adverse conditions. The gov­ernment was bankrupt; it was operating on a deficit of P250 million. The international reserves were in extremis, with the dollar reserves at $103 million and the Central Bank obligated in the sum of $341 million at preferred rates ranging from P2.00 to P3.20 per $1.00. Graft and corruption had seeped into every nook and crevice of the government, both national and local. The people had assumed an attitude of cynicism, an attitude that made them shrug off corruption as inevitable.

The results of our moral drive have been gratifying. The “tong” system in which businessmen made regular pay­ments to government officials has ended. The practices of pay­ing commission, percentage, overprice or kick-back in consideration of contracts and public service has been curbed. The webs of corruption which unscrupulous individuals had woven in our society through many years of unrestrained activity have been destroyed. The commission of graft at the higher echelons has been virtually terminated; at the lowest levels of government, it has been substantially minimized. We will relentlessly go after venalities at all levels of the public service.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diosdado_Macapagal%27s_Second_State_of_the_Nation_Address

A bankrupt government full of corruption. Does that not sound like the current situation in the Philippines? Despite the results of Macapagal's drive against corruption, corruption remains. It is here to stay and the COA Annual Report is proof.