Ex-BOC chief assails COA over ‘malicious’ audit

MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has assailed the Commission on Audit (COA) for its allegedly inaccurate findings on BOC administrative matters and for not validating the data, which a top customs official described as not only erroneous but also “malicious.”

Before he resigned, Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla, in a two-page memo to Ma. Theresa Yambao, COA supervising auditor at the Department of Finance (DOF)-attached agency, took particular exception to the COA finding that Gen. Jessie Dellosa, a former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, was one of several AFP personnel assigned to the BOC.

“Had the auditors been more circumspect in their audit, they would have known that General Dellosa was appointed customs deputy commissioner for the intelligence group by His Excellency President Benigno S. Aquino III on Nov. 8, 2013,” Sevilla said in his March 24 memo, a copy of which was furnished the Inquirer.

The COA claimed that at least 40 officials and employees detailed at the bureau continued to assume various BOC posts and receive salaries from the agency even though their job contracts had expired.

State auditors said it was contrary to Section 2 of Civil Service Commission (CSC) Memorandum Circular No. 21 (Series of 2002), “thus, they exceedingly rendered government service at the BOC without authority.”

The detailed government personnel, including several military officials and employees, belong to a special team formed by the DOF to reform the BOC, said to be one of the most corrupt government agencies.

‘Indispensable partner’

Sevilla asserted he “would like to think of COA as an indispensable partner who could help us achieve rather than impede the institution of reforms in the bureau.”

“It is in this context that we hope our working relationship will develop,” he said.

Dellosa described the COA report not only “erroneous and inappropriate” but also “malicious.”

He questioned the auditors’ alleged “failure to apply the administrative dictum on due process.”

The COA report failed to “satisfy the well-settled rule on due process applicable to any administrative proceeding or inquiry,” he pointed out.

Both Sevilla and Dellosa corrected the state auditors’ finding that several officials and employees from various government agencies detailed to the BOC received their salaries even though their job contracts already expired in December 2014.

“The continued services with the Bureau of Customs of detailed officials and employees beyond the one-year period did not peremptorily render the same illegal and without authority,” said Sevilla.

The CSC “itself allows detail for more than one year, provided it is with the consent of the detailed employee,” he also said.

“Assuming, ex-gratia argument, that indeed the concerned detailed officials and employees have been rendering services with the BOC for more than one year, the fact that they did not raise any issue on their continued detail means that they implicitly consented to the extension of their detail. Moreover, they were neither required to return by their respective mother agencies,” he explained.

Sevilla said, “If the auditors only bothered to validate their data, they would have found that almost one-half of the names on the list (of detailed personnel) are no longer with the BOC. Several of them have not even assumed office in the BOC.”

“It is also not true that the rest are working with the BOC without the requisite extension of their detail,” he emphasized.

On the COA’s claim that the salaries of detailed government personnel were drawn from the bureau, he said it was a “nonissue.”