The Commission on Audit (COA) has maintained that it has not released any audit report on the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) for 2017, contrary to claims that COA flagged anomalous projects by the department.
“There is an audit report, but it is ongoing and we haven’t released it yet,” a COA employee who refused to be named told Inquirer.net on Wednesday.
COA added that finalized reports would be published and made available on their website. The clarification was issued after Senator Antonio Trillanes cited a report from an online site of a tabloid in a Senate resolution he filed on Tuesday.
According to the tabloid’s report, the findings of PCOO’s audit report prompted COA to search for the P647.11 million used to fund an information caravan during the country’s chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2017.
In an article published on the website of government-owned People’s Television’s (PTV), PCOO Undersecretary Noel Puyat called the tabloid story malicious and fake. He cited COA Supervising Auditor for PCOO Edna Salaguban’s clarification that no audit report was issued.
“It (news story) could not have been lifted from [the] audit report,” Salaguban said in the PTV report.
Trillanes said that PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar created the information caravan project to educate Filipinos on the work of the ASEAN as there was a perceived ‘lack of knowledge and awareness’ among the public.
“There is an immediate need to look into the alleged irregularities in the disposition of PCOO’s budget and its irregular expenditures for the aforementioned information caravan to ensure that government funds are legally and properly allocated,” Trillanes said in Senate Resolution 773.
“The PCOO, through its Committee on Media Affairs and Strategic Communications (CMASC) headed by Undersecretary Noel Puyat, launched the ‘One ASEAN, a Global Player’ information campaign which is geared towards greater awareness and understanding necessary for the building of a general community,” the resolution added. /ee