Palace mulls more guards for audit chief
A MESSAGE OR A MISS? Quezon City police officials point to a damaged window of the COA building following Wednesday’s shooting incident. The encircled portion indicates a bullet’s entry point.
Malacañang is considering giving additional security to Commission on Audit Chair Grace Pulido-Tan as it expressed “grave concern” over reports that unidentified men fired shots and hit the COA main office in Quezon City, damaging a couple of windows shortly before the start of office hours Wednesday morning.
The police, however, left room for doubt and said the government building may not be the real target of the shooting. This was after a witness recalled seeing a pair of men on a motorcycle shooting at another man near COA but missing their target.
The shooting drew more than the usual attention in view of COA’s explosive disclosures recently on the diversion of lawmakers’ pork barrel funds to nongovernment organizations controlled by the now detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged scam mastermind.
Released in August, the special audit report covered the period from 2007 to 2009. Tan then noted that the findings were validated a month earlier by the Inquirer series on the P10-billion scam based on the affidavits of Napoles’ former employees who turned whistle-blowers.
“Certainly we are looking at it with concern especially if there’s an investigation (that) would show that this is not a random incident. We look at this with grave concern,” presidential
Commission on Audit Chair Grace Pulido-Tan
spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in a Palace briefing.
“We’re currently assessing if Chairman Tan requires additional security,” said Lacierda. “This should not deter anyone. And to those enemies of reform who intended to use this as a threat to those people pushing for reforms, you have heard the chairman and you will fail.”
In a statement, Tan said the agency wouldn’t want to preempt the results of the police investigation but “we will not allow this incident to cow us into silence or deter us from faithfully discharging our constitutional duty.”
“We owe this to God and the Filipino people. Please pray for the safety of every man and woman in the commission and for continued courage and integrity,” she said.
According to Quezon City Police District director Chief Supt. Richard Albano, “gunfire was heard as early as 7 a.m. but nobody realized that the bullets had hit the COA building until (two) hours later.”
Bullet holes were discovered on the windows of a second-floor office and pantry of the COA building on Commonwealth Avenue, which was still empty of employees when the shots were heard.
Albano said a bullet slug was later found among the bits of broken glass inside the office of Director Nilda Plaras of COA’s Risk Management and Budget Office. Another slug was found in the pantry next to Plaras’ office.
But police investigators were also looking at the possibility that these were mere stray bullets. This was after they gathered from a worker in a videoke bar across Commonwealth that he saw the possible shooters on a motorbike as they drove past COA.
“He said the armed men fired several times at another man but completely missed their target and sped away,” Albano told the Inquirer.
The location of the bullet holes appeared to be consistent with the position of the shooters and the trajectory of their shots as described by the witness, he added.
