Ex-Davao City accountant new COA chief

Rizalina Justol —LYN RILLON

President Duterte has signed the appointment paper of Rizalina Justol as new chair of the Commission on Audit (COA), acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles said on Friday.

Justol replaces Michael Aguinaldo, whose term ended on Feb. 2.

Justol was deputy executive secretary for finance and administration under the Office of the President before her transfer to the audit agency. Duterte signed her appointment paper on Feb. 17.

She also worked as city accountant of Davao, where Mr. Duterte was mayor for a total of 22 years.

In 2010, she was one of the respondents among Davao City officials, including Duterte himself as mayor, in a plunder complaint filed at the Office of the Ombudsman.

The complaint cited a report by the COA on the misappropriation of P11 million in the city’s Special Education Fund, among other findings.

Asked about this, Nograles said Justol, like other appointees, would be vetted by the Commission on Appointments.

Other Davao appointees

“For positions like the COA chair and for many high positions, apart from the appointment, they will undergo the process of confirmation,” he said at a press briefing.

Officials are appointed based on “experience, credentials, achievements, accomplishments,” he added.

“We wish Chair Justol success in the COA and assure her that the government will always be supportive of the COA’s efforts to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of government funds,” Nograles said.

Several of Duterte’s recent appointees hail from his hometown of Davao.

In January, Maria Belen “Mabel” Sunga Acosta, a Davao City councilor for about 18 years, was appointed chair of the Mindanao Development Authority, after its head, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, resigned to run for senator.

Jesus Melchor Quitain was named the new chief presidential legal counsel in October last year, replacing Salvador Panelo who had also resigned to run for senator.

Quitain was previously officer in charge of the Office of the Special Assistant to the President. He served as Davao City administrator when Duterte was mayor.

In November 2020, the President appointed his former legal consultant Warren Rex Liong as overall deputy Ombudsman, replacing Arthur Carandang whom he had fired after Carandang said there would be an inquiry into Mr. Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth.

Also at that time, Duterte appointed Aimee Ferolino, a career official from Davao del Norte, to replace retiring commissioner Al Parreño of the Commission on Elections.

Ferolino authored the ruling of the poll body’s First Division released on Feb. 10, which threw out three petitions seeking the disqualification of presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Deficiencies

Duterte had attacked the COA, an independent constitutional body, after it questioned several deficiencies in government transactions, including those involving the Department of Health (DOH) during the pandemic.

When the COA flags transactions, there is a “taint of corruption by perception,” he complained, as he warned the agency against publishing its reports.

It was a COA report on the transfer of P42 billion from the DOH to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management that triggered a Senate probe on the government’s deals with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.

The Senate blue ribbon committee investigation into that controversy found that Pharmally bagged P11.5 billion in contracts despite having a paid up capital of only P625,000. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH

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