COA set to audit Senate funds – Lacson

Senator Panfilo Lacson. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Audit (COA) is set to conduct an audit of the Senate’s use of funds, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Monday.

“[The audit will involve an assessment of the] Senate as a whole and use of funds of each senator [including] the additional Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) and regular MOOE,” Lacson said when asked what would be audited by the COA.

He said the COA had sent his office a letter Monday requesting for “all papers, documents … bearing on the augmentation and realignment of Senate funds” so they could conduct the audit.

The way the Senate uses its funds was recently engulfed in controversy because of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s act of giving P1.6 million as MOOE to 18 senators and P600,000 to four senators December last year.

The additional MOOE was said to have been sourced from savings in the Senate budget.

A separate P250,000, said to have been sourced from savings of the Office of the Senate President, was also given to all senators. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago said she returned the P250,000.

The non-government organization, Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), had previously filed an ethics complaint against all the senators over the controversy.

“COA is invoking the institution [as the mandated government auditor] so the Senate will have to comply,” Lacson, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Accounts, said.

He said the COA’s audit will begin “the moment we submit [the documents]. Today or tomorrow the accounting office will be ready to give documents (and) if there are also records from the individual offices of the senators they will be included.”

The Senate’s books for the year 2010 up to 2012 will be the first to be audited and then afterwards they will look into the years 2007 to 2009, Lacson said.

The Senate will hold a caucus afternoon Monday to discuss the said pending audit of COA, he added.