Andaya says COA got hikes, not cuts

MANILA, Philippines — Contrary to claims by a legislator, the budget of the Commission on Audit (COA) had been increased every year, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr asserted on Wednesday. Andaya said the COA's budget will also jump from almost half a billion pesos from P4.087 billion in 2004 to a proposed P4.549 billion next year. On top of this is the amount for the increase in the pay of COA employees, which is included in a separate P20 billion fund in the proposed 2009 national budget intended for the first installment of a four -year plan to hike the salary of all national government employees, he said. "Numbers do not lie. There is not a single year that COA's budget has been cut. The charge that its appropriations have been reduced is clearly unfounded and a battalion of COA auditors in fact will be able to verify this," Andaya said in a press statement. Andaya was reacting to a complaint by House Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan that the independent body’s share in the annual national budget has been decreasung since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed office in 2001, According to Hontiveros, the COA’s share in the national budget for 2009 as approved by Malacañang stands at P4 billion, or 0.29 percent of the national expenditure program for 2009. In 2002, the COA’s share was 0.54 percent. “The eight years when COA’s budget has been decreased were also the time when government corruption worsened," Hontiveros said in a press conference on Monday. She noted that the Malacañang or the DBM rejected several requests by the COA for additional funding, including a P5 million for “confidential and intelligence expenses," which she said was needed to enable auditors to properly investigate government spending. “It appears that there is an intent to impair and weaken the institution itself," Hontiveros said. “A weaker COA means more corruption in government." Just recently, the audit body revealed questionable fund disbursements by the Department of Agriculture as auditors discovered fake signatures in the list of beneficiaries for the P218.7-million expenditure for hybrid rice, certified seeds, farm inputs, and fertilizers. Fiscal flexibility In his press statement on Wednesday, Andaya said it was misleading to gauge an agency's "budget weight" by measuring its appropriations against the whole national budget. He clarified that no law fixes COA's share to the national budget, which means that when the overall national budget increases, it does not automatically follow that COA should follow the curve. "If we subscribe to the permanent earmark theory, then, if we allocate, for example, P2 billion to repair typhoon damaged areas, must we automatically set aside a share for COA? I am sure COA will even frown on this as the agency itself is a proponent of the time-honored budgeting principle of prioritizing needs," Andaya said. Andaya said that as a fiscally autonomous body, a status that goes with its being a constitutionally independent body, COA has " wider latitude in the use of its funds and can internally realign the funds it receives ." That "fiscal flexibility" is even made more possible by the fact that its budget is pegged on a manpower complement of 15,000, when DBM's recent records show that COA only has 11,000 "filled positions," Andaya said. But to its credit, payroll and other savings which COA has managed to generate have been applied to activities that would boost its "sentinel duties over public spending, " Andaya said. He said that another "unquestioned prerogative" of the COA as a fiscally autonomous body, a category its shares with Congress and the Supreme Court, is its exemption from the hiring freeze, which is in effect bureaucracy-wide by virtue of the so-called "rationalization plan." Andaya said "the steady increase in COA allotment would show that the Commission has, in fact, been rewarded and not penalized for doing its job, "he said. "We have always viewed COA as a partner in the judicious and transparent management of public funds. COA audits are a valuable aid in budgeting. They show lapses in procurement of goods and services, for example. So how can the executive branch not support a partner?, "Andaya stressed. He said looking at the "face value" of an agency's budget by reading the General Appropriations Act (GAA) alone will not lead one to arrive at the total allotments the agency will receive. Agencies like COA included draw from Special Purpose Funds like the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) for the ten percent salary hike and the Retirement on Life Insurance Premiums (RLIP) for retirement funds," Andaya pointed out. In 2006, for example, COA received P300 million in employer's share for the RLIP. If you read the GAA, its appropriations that year is P3.622 billion. Actual COA obligations for that year totaled P4.143 billion. In 2008, with P300 million automatically appropriated for the RLIP, the Commission's total appropriation reached P4.549 billion despite a GAA figure of P3.756 billion. "If in case COA harbors personnel deficiencies either in size or in funding, then this can be addressed immediately by submitting the updated plantilla of personnel so the actual personal services requirements can be computed," he said. - GMANews.TV