Impeach COA! – 3

I will not discuss whether the case filed by SM Prime Holdings against province is a valid, legal or even moral, as ground to stop or delay the agreements between the province of Occidental Negros and Ayala Land Inc. I will leave that to legal experts. I will deal with what an ordinary person with common sense would understand.

Granting that SMPH holdings informed or filed an opposition to the deal before the Commission on Audit, why didn’t COA, or its chair, Maria Gracia Pulido-Tan, inform the governor, who had sent three follow-up letters? Should not basic courtesy be extended to the head of our province, a person we elected to serve our interest? Has Pulido-Tan no respect for other government officials? Never mind what the law says.

On the other hand, Tan is an appointee, albeit now covered with security by the Constitution that she has shown to disregard with seeming contempt.

If this petition of SMPH to the Court Appeals is the reason and COA believes (though wrongly) that they should not act or even inform the governor and grant him the basic right to due process, this excuse flies out of the window into the dung heap because on February 22, 2012 the province sent an “urgent appeal for early resolution and/or request for the setting of the case for commission proper hearing.”

Attached to this “urgent appeal” is the decision of the Special 19th Division of the Court of Appeals in Cebu City dated February 16, 2012 which dismissed the case filed by SMPH. This then clears the obstacle, granting that indeed it was a legal obstacle.

Did the Commission act? No, it did not only not act it completely ignored the appeal of the province and in a show of official arrogance from its high pedestal in its formulated heaven the Commission did not even answer the urgent appeal with an acknowledgement receipt.

The COA cannot use the excuse that it did not receive this appeal because the Commission on Audit Secretariat stamped the document to have been received by it on February 24 at 9:30 a.m. through a COA employee named Gretchen.

The governor’s appeal included a request to face the Commission to answer whatever the Commission wishes to clarify or if there were lapses, omissions or defect, then the province would be able to correct, alter or do whatever to satisfy the gods in COA.

But even this simple request was not given the basic courtesy of a reply. Even beggars get the droplets from the master’s table, but not the gods of COA – they are beyond reach in complete defiance of the basic tenets of official behavior and the Constitution.

The governor’s appeal included the province’ willingness to face anybody “to shed light on matters that this Honorable Commission and/or any interested party may require clarification in relation to the proposed negotiated Deed of Conditional Sale and Contract of Lease of the proponent with Ayala Inc.”

This simply means that the province was willing to face SM Prime Holdings, the only party with conflicting interest in this contract if it wanted to. I say this because only SMPH has questioned this deal. The people of Bácolod and the province all support this project and in fact it had been endorsed by the different sectors and sanggunian.

But like gods of wax the commissioners remained silent. Even the deaf and the blind can respond, but not COA in their perches in Olympus.

On January 23, 2012, Gov. Marañon wrote directly to Tan “as a fellow servant in the government whose primary objective is to promote the best interest of the public.” It closed with a request for an “audience with the honorable Chair in order to fully discuss the matters in relation to the proposed contracts.”

He said this project is “primarily to generate funds to accelerate the services of the provincial government such as construction of irrigation highway, hospitals and schools and the distribution of health care as well as the creation of business and livelihood opportunities that would have significant impact in the lives of the people of the Province of Negros Occidental.”

Did Tan care at all? Nope, the Governor received nothing but stony silence.

The attitude of Pulido-Tan is the brew that boils and brings about rebellion. Such heartless and arrogant attitude of officials of government led to the chopping off of the head of Marie Antoinette by guillotine.

Is she really that heartless not to see the great need for jobs or is something amiss?
I will continue on Monday and, space permitting, will be able to expose the interlocking, mutually-beneficial financial relationship between COA Chair Pulido Tan and her family with the SM companies, a plausible reason for this disregard of the Constitution and refusal to act on a legitimate project.*

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