Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday criticized the Commission on Audit (COA) for failing to detect fraudulent flood control projects that turned out to be either non-existent or substandard.
“There was collusion, which is why anomalous and questionable projects slipped through. Our call to agencies is to fix the process and not destroy the trust of our people,” he said.
The lawmaker flagged glaring anomalies in project reports that he said COA should have identified at the review stage. One case involved a flood control project reported to be 89 percent complete only 15 days after the notice to proceed was issued. The same project was declared fully completed in just 34 days, a timeline Gatchalian said was highly questionable.
He added that the same photographs were recycled as documentation for various stages of the project’s supposed progress. A basic tabletop review of project documents, he argued, should have been enough for auditors to detect irregularities.
Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, urged COA to investigate the role of its resident auditor assigned to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). He said the scope and speed of the alleged ghost projects suggested possible complicity by COA personnel, including potential active participation in fraudulent schemes.
“I do not believe this could have passed through COA if the resident auditor was not involved in the scheme. What we want is to restore trust in COA,” he said.
