President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday that state auditors should be kidnapped and tortured for hampering the work of his administration.
In a speech during the Barangay Summit on Peace and order, the President criticized the Commission on Audit for its bureaucratic processes that delay government projects.
“Those sons of b****** in COA. That COA, every time, there is always something wrong. What’s up with this COA? What if we kidnap someone from COA and torture them here? Sons of b******,” Duterte told local officials in Pasay City.
“All it does is make things difficult. That’s what I don’t want—making things difficult,” added Duterte.
COA, an independent agency, is primarily responsible for examining the accounts and spending of local government agencies, regularly assesses how government departments spend and use public funds.
The Palace again played down the President’s remark about kidnapping and torturing auditors as a joke, saying Duterte only wanted to say COA should stop derailing the administration’s projects.
“It’s too obvious that he was joking. The more you criticize his style, the more he will stick to his mischief and irreverence,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a text message.
“But at the same time, PRRD is chiding COA not to derail ongoing government projects by certain stringent protocols that go against the letter and intent of the law,” he added.
Last December, the President asked the COA to avoid decisions that cause “gridlock” in projects of the government, urging the agency to “invent” decisions that would allow the entry of projects and investments into the country.
Panelo, on the other hand, had earlier clarified that Duterte only meant that there may be a need to change certain regulations and policies of the agency.
In September 2018, the President joked about pushing a COA auditor down the stairs for unfavorably reporting the projects of Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos, an ally of his administration.
“Who’s from COA? Push him down the stairs so he won’t be able to file a report anymore,” he said, telling local officials to ignore COA circulars.
For decades, the country’s auditors have earned the reputation of being strict as they closely scrutinize government expenditures.
While the COA does not have the authority to prosecute individuals, the evidence they have gathered through auditing has been used to put public officials in jail.
COA officials declined to comment on the President’s latest attack but its chairman, Michael Aguinaldo, advised auditors to “stay away from the stairs.”
Former commissioner Heidi Mendoza, in her Facebook post, came to the defense of the agency.
“If there are too many people getting angry at you [CoA], that only means you are being effective and truthful in what you are doing,” she said.
Mendoza said they just wanted to ensure that public funds were being spent wisely and that public officials were accountable.
“It is very clear [to all] what the job of an auditor is. We have never meant to interfere, to delay transactions and especially, to have the opportunity to benefit and earn [money]. Our role is to pave
the way for a clean, honest and systematic way of spending public funds in such a way we could hold someone liable for it, and that projects are transparent for the public to see,” she said.
