The Commission on Audit still had not released yesterday the decision reportedly made by its commissioners in mid-August on the contracts of the Negros Occidental provincial government for the sale and lease of its 7.7-hectare prime property in Bacolod City to AyalaLand Inc.

DAILY STAR sources last week said the sale and lease had been approved by COA Commissioners Juanito Espino Jr. and Heidi Mendoza.

Director Rolando Macale, head of the COA Public Information Office, last week confirmed that a decision had indeed been reached by the commission proper, but said he was not in the position to divulge if it was an approval or a rejection.

Yesterday he said he did not have anything yet from the COA chairman’s office.

COA chairperson Ma. Gracia Pulido Tan in a text message in response to a STAR query on the decision yesterday, said: “May I reiterate that I am not the person to ask about this as I have inhibited. As I told you previously, please check with the commission secretariat.”

Macale in a letter to the DAILY STAR, said “The COA is guided by protocols, policies, rules and regulations regarding the release of information to the media. A memorandum from the Chief Executive Staff of this Commission last March 22, 2012 states that to centralize all incoming and outgoing communications relating COA, all requests for contact with members of the press and their agencies, including for interviews, publicity or responding to publicity should be addressed to the Public Information Office”, which he heads.

Tan has inhibited herself from deciding on the Negros Occidental provincial government’s sale of its property to AyalaLand over concern that the law firm of her husband represents the Sys, Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda had said in April .

The Sy family owns SM Prime Holdings that is opposing the Capitol's sale and lease of its property to ALI

The provincial government sent the contracts for the sale and lease of the property to the COA for review in July 2011, Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. said earlier.*CPG

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