COA’s decision

The great news I read after we had dinner with three archbishops from the Philippines where they are staying was the decision of the Commission on Audit approving the contract between the province and Ayala Land, Inc.

Manila Archbishop Luis Tagle, Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles and Archbishop Socrates “Soc” Villegas are here in Rome and staying in the Pontifico Collegio Filippino where Fr. Greg Gaston was kind enough to accommodate us during our stay.

Later joining us for dinner was former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and her son, who came in from Holland also on a visit to Rome. They are also staying at the Collegio.

Archbishop Tagle, Archbishop Valles with Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma had been invited by Pope Benedict XVI to attend the Synod of Bishops that will be convened here.

Now that the Commission on Audit has approved the contract, it would be unfair for Ayala Land to back out. ALI should remember that this whole fiasco is not the fault of the province that was treated like a pariah by COA.

After going through the gauntlet, ALI should now start this project and not play hard to get. It has much to lose by that stance because it would be taking the same path the COA took.

Anyway, I think that the letter of ALI has not been consummated in terms of a mutual agreement with the province so that it should consider what the governor had to suffer – the humiliation and the arrogance of COA.

The decision contains argument that we had been saying here all along, and that this case by SM Prime Holdings is without any bearing on the COA decision.

SMPHI should also withdraw its case because, to me, the decision of COA practically throws out the arguments of SMPHI.

SM need not lose face. It is, in fact, being invited by the governor to join the development of the Capitol site. What that will be, I don’t know. We will know only when the governor reveals what he means.

It is a sad thing that COA had to be forced to make a decision that it ought to have done so a long time ago. We have to reveal what needed not come to light but as a citizen and adversely affected by COA’s delay, it behooves to join forces with the governor to force COA.

In a way, we exposed the dents in the COA armor especially how COA treats government agencies, how its own chairman is financially linked with the SM group of corporations, what conflict of interests has been hidden, and what kind of mentality exists within the realm of COA.

The present administration is founded on what it declared – the right way, the matuwid na daan – and yet here, the appointee of President Aquino , does not walk the same straight path. She makes the President look unable to enforce that principle of how government officials are to perform in office.

This becomes more imperative because COA is an indispensable agency in the fight against corruption. If COA performs in this manner and there is a question on the integrity of its own chairperson, how can the President’s word be believed?

Since laws had been violated as revealed in this column, the congressional probe should continue. When I talked with Rep. Teddy Casiño, he said that COA had violated its oath, the laws and the Constitution and should be proved to aid in the crafting of a law that would prevent COA from inflicting damage to the government it ought to protect. What happened to the Occidental Negros provincial government should not be repeated elsewhere and on anybody.

Public office is a public trust and the persons entrusted with the duty to uphold the integrity of public office should be above and beyond suspicion.

Can COA under Grace Pulido-Tan pass this test?

This is the reason why Rep. Casiño who is running for the Senate and his companion, Rep. Neri Colmenares, should pursue the investigation here in Bacolod.

The objective here is not to put more salt on the wound, as the ancients would say, but to seek the means to improve the mechanism whereby the power of a constitutional office should be prevented from being used arbitrarily to serve private interests.

By the way, while the governor can thank the Negros Press Club for whatever it did in this case, the initiative for the impeachment of COA that resulted in the plan for a congressional investigation was taken by the Council of Past Presidents of the NPC. The Council is headed by Rolly Espina.

Sure, there are other players but I think that the Council also deserves some mention at least.

Still I yield to old dictum that success has many fathers.*

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