As quietly as his predecessor stepped down upon her retirement last February, lawyer Michael Aguinaldo assumes the chairmanship of the Commission on Audit this month.
Aguinaldo placed 7th in the 1993 Bar examination, practiced the profession specializing in mergers and acquisitions and projects related to infrastructure, telecommunications and energy. He was a law professor and was deputy executive secretary for legal affairs, holding office in Malacañang since March 2011 before being appointed to the commission.
Aside from these vague sketches from the items on his resume, nobody outside of his circles really knows the inclination, temperament and priorities of Aguinaldo. Commission employees and the rest of us are wondering what kind of chairman Aguinaldo will turn out to be.
This is, after all, the COA that has become more visible to the public after its special audits on the use of lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund. Under the previous chairman, Maria Gracia Pulido Tan, the commission enjoyed an improvement in public perception as an independent government agency tasked to examine how public funds are used.
Pulido Tan had many times said she would not allow her agency to be used for selective justice or political persecution amid talk that the commission was clamping down on the administration’s political enemies while keeping silent on its allies.
Outside the glare of media coverage, the COA has, in fact, made tangible gains in the past few years. It tried to weed out auditors who abused their positions for personal gain. It opened up the audit process, or at least part of it, to citizen participation. It even got itself named external auditor of the International Labour Organization.
Aguinaldo will occupy the post for the next seven years. This is significant given the view that audit issues against the current administration, especially its use of public funds, are likely to be raised when President Aquino steps down next year.
That we know little about Aguinaldo is perhaps a good thing, because he now enjoys a blank slate on which his leadership would write the commission’s record for the next seven years.
The new chairman will begin his day-to-day duties at the constitutional commission today. We hope he will do so quietly and without fanfare, but effectively and without color.
The next few weeks and months will be worth watching.