Stella Quimbo Proves Romualdez’ Congress Is A Kangaroo Court
Part One: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely
Once I wrote we have a Congress of baboons.
I quickly corrected myself after I found out from Larissa Swedell, an anthropologist who studies primates in Ethiopia and South Africa, that among monkeys, baboons are socially sophisticated and incredibly smart.”
Another anthropologist, Shirley Strum, director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project in Nairobi, Kenya also clarified, “Among primates, no species is as dangerous as humans.”
I also have to be corrected if my reference to kangaroos, this time, is inappropriate.
But Ellson Quismoro of Manila Bulletin and Gabriel Pabico Lalu of the Philippines Daily Inquirer in quoting House Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe that Vice President Sara Duterte may be liable for graft if she cannot explain to the Commission on Audit (COA) how her office spent its confidential funds (CF) for 2022, opens the kangaroo trail.
This is a tricky fallacy much like pointing a loaded gun to your head and saying, “If I pull the trigger, I might die.”
In Spanish – Muy Bobissimo! In Cebuiano – Tonto kaayo!
Of course, Quismoro and Lalu are suspects for receiving payola for such a mindless report. They are even at a lower cellar for passing Dalipe’s idiotic and fake assumption as “news”.
Dalipe shared the half-truth that, “The COA issued a notice of disallowance on P73.2 million of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) P125-million CF for 2022 — an item which several lawmakers said should be unavailable in the first place as the original budget crafted under former Vice President Leni Robredo did not have such.”
That Robredo did not have such funding is a foul ball because the analogy does not necessarily follow, in fact it does not mean anything at all. In elementary Latin, non sequitur est.
The relevant confidential funds of Department of Education did not come from the General Appropriation by Congress to the Office of the Vice President but from the Office of the President.
It was a legitimate transfer approved by the President and facilitated through the Department of Budget Management. If at all, it is the President therefore that should be made to explain, not the Vice President.
Equally, black propaganda being propagated by some political detractors the release of funds signals any irregularity occurred 11 days from the end of the calendar year 2023, is inconsequential.
Even a release on the last working day of the year would have been immaterial because the request that started the process and justification of the expense, was made as early as five months before in August 2023.
It is the suggestion of a midnight transaction that not only erroneous but malicious.
As a second step, Dalipe called in the ghosts, bicycling the issues, “More than just allegations of mismanagement, she may be held liable for graft for possible violation of the anti-graft laws if she cannot adequately explain and justify the adverse findings, and if the COA does not accept her explanations and justifications.”
His toxic spin, of course, is to arouse alarm bells and suspicions among the general public who does not know what a “COA disallowance” is all about.
This deliberation is all moot because the vice president is not refusing to face the music with the auditors and is cooperating with the audit procedures to have the disallowance lifted.
Congress has nothing to do with any censure or the available reliefs.
Any more appearances are just a waste of time for all parties. This is why in the second hearing of the House Appropriation Committee, the Vice President no longer appeared and just sent a note of courtesy to the Speaker that she is just entirely leaving it to the House to determine whatever budget it wants her to have.
In an interview, Sara Duterte said that even if the congressmen totally defund her office with a zero budget, she assured those who still wanted to be helped by her, that will still receive appropriate public service.
“Even without a budget, we will still work,” Sara Duterte said.
COA disallowance
If there was a sober person who introduced rhyme and reason to what turning out to be a mob lynching, it was Congressman Rodante Marcoleta who extracted the right answers from the representative of the Commission on Audit.
Disallowance, COA said, does not necessarily mean the items given the yellow flag are illegal or have not been outrightly accepted by the government auditing office.
The yellow flag only means the government agency is being given 180 days or six months to “appeal” any initial findings by clarifying issues and if and when necessary, submitting required documents.
Dalipe’s incompetent allusion to former Vice President Robredo is even ridiculous because it was Robredo’s spokesman Barry Gutierrez who pursued the same COA rules and procedure last July 2022 over a similar disallowance case:
“According to COA rules, appeals are taken up by directors who have jurisdiction over the agency being audited. Decisions of directors on the appeals may be elevated to the COA’s Adjudication and Settlement Board or to the commission proper.
“In this case, the commission proper, composed of COA chairperson and its two commissioners, will take up any appeals arising from any adverse decision by a director who would review the disallowance.
“Even then, the decision of the commission proper does not become final and executory until after 30 days, unless a motion for reconsideration is filed before the Supreme Court.”
This procedure is identical to the statement of the COA official answering Congressman Marcoleta’s inquiries.
Case of Leni Robredo
In its 2021 audit report, COA issued former Vice President Leni Robredo, a notice of disallowance over its hiring of a legal consultant without the permission of the state auditing body and the Office of the Solicitor General:
“In view of the lack of the written conformity and acquiescence of the Solicitor General and the written concurrence of COA, and despite having legal officers, payments made to the legal consultant are considered irregular and unnecessary expenditures.”
In its defense, the OVP said it requested the Office of the President to create third-level positions for a core group of policy advisers, including the legal consultant who was recommended by Robredo to be appointed as undersecretary.
“However, OP did not act upon the request which compelled the office to resort to a consultancy arrangement,” the OVP said in comments to COA’s findings.
But state auditors were not satisfied with this explanation and maintained that the expenses paid to the legal consultant should be disallowed issuing a notice of disallowance on April 5, 2022.
In its 2009 Revised Rules of Procedure, the COA defines disallowance as “the disapproval in audit of a transaction, either in whole or in part.”
Essentially, when a government transaction is disallowed, as it is either irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant or illegal, the public funds used for it must be returned to the government by the people who approved of it.
In Robredo’s case, the COA said “concerned agency officials who signed/approved the contract of service, approved the payments, and certified as to the necessity and lawfulness of the expenses as well as the completeness of supporting documents, should be held personally liable for the disallowance.”
The notice of disallowance on Robredo, however, was been lifted by COA after it granted the OVP’s appeal on June 29, 2022 “considering the absence of bad faith, malice or gross negligence in the transaction.”
Gutierrez said that in the OVP’s appeal, it maintained that the consultant worked primarily as a key adviser on policy matters and not as a lawyer and should not be covered by COA rules on hiring lawyers.
Even if COA flagged the OVP over the hiring of a legal consultant, it still got an unmodified or an unqualified opinion from the state auditing body, which indicates that the financial statements of Robredo’s former office are all in order.
This means that the COA found that the OVP during Robredo’s final year in office fairly presented its financial statements according to public sector accounting standards.
The COA cautioned, however, that an audit opinion should not be treated as a rating that ranges from highest to lowest.
“It is important to note that the financial statements represent only a facet of an agency and that an audit opinion does not provide any conclusions on the agency’s level of compliance with laws, rules and regulations, nor the application of the principles of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the agency’s operations,” the COA said in June 2022.
So, what is good for the goose is good for the gander,
Congressional misdemeanor
The behavior of some congressmen and one senator in subjecting Vice President Sara Duterte to interpellation while she was invited as a resource person, was rude, boorish, cocky and downright unparliamentary.
The chair of the House committee was even ignorant of House rules at the resumption of the hearing by asking the Vice President to take an oath.
Former President Gloria Arroyo, now a congressman, had to correct the chair saying that the vice president has been summoned as a “resource speaker” and not a witness, and that the Supreme Court has already ruled that only witnesses have to take the oath before the committee.
At the second hearing, Marcoleta stressed that the interpellation was in violation of Congress’ hallowed traditions of not subjecting the Offices of the President and the Vice President to such inconvenience.
When Marcoleta made a point of inquiry firstly whether the committee has the power to change this tradition, and secondly, was it in fact changing this tradition, the chair answered a categorical “no to both questions”.
A second after, instead of terminating the session, the chair superseded her ruling and still proceeded on conducting the hearing as if nothing happened, accepting manifestations by the members especially those who were just disparaging the vice president.
All manifestations were not only irrelevant but obnoxiously malicious, especially those coming from Castro, Brosas, Abante, Paduano and Luistro.
Some of these Duterte detractors have already filed for a clarification from the Supreme Court as to the legality of the 2022 transfer of confidential funds from the President to the Vice President.
Discussing the subject matter outside of the court is subjudice and might subject discussants to being cited for contempt by the judiciary.
Secondly, the material facts and explanations are still at its exploratory stage of the disallowance by a constitutional body that is not under the powers and supervision of either Congress or the judiciary.
As matter of common sense, I am anticipating the Supreme Court to dismiss whatever petition on the subject matter, as this would be prejudicial and preemptive to the function of another constitutional body that is COA.
So, I may not have millions of pesos in Patek Phillipe watches, designer clothes, matching bags and shoes for everyday wardrobe but I know a kangaroo when I see one.
Kangaroos possess powerful hind legs, a long, strong tail, and small front legs. With their large feet, kangaroos can leap some nine meters in a single bound, and travel more than 48 kilometers per hour.
Humans who behave like kangaroos are fooling themselves they can jump above and beyond justice and they can run faster than the rule of law.
A kangaroo court is an informal pejorative term for a forum that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc.
Often the kangaroos in such court, are the not just the complainants and accusers, but judges, jury and executioners.
“Iudex iudicum et carnifex” has no place in our constitutional democracy. It is anathema in a civilized society and is regarded as a despicable disease.
Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan
is former diplomat who served as press attaché and spokesman of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC and the Philippines’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from April 1986 to 1993. Presently, he is vice-president for international affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Institute, a geopolitical analyst, author of books, columnist, a print and broadcast journalist, and a hobby-organic-farmer.
His best sellers, A Problem for Every Solution (2015), a characterization of factors affecting Philippine-China relations, and No Vaccine for a Virus called Racism (2020) a survey of international news attempting to tracing its origins, earned for him an international laureate in the Awards for the Promotion of Philippine-China Understanding in 2021. His third book, The Poverty of Power is now available – a historiography of controversial issues of spanning 36 years leading to the Demise of the Edsa Revolution and the Forthcoming Rise of a Philippine Phoenix.
Today he is anchor for many YouTube Channels, namely Ang Maestro Lectures @Katipunan Channel (Saturdays), Unfinished Revolution (Sundays) and Opinyon Online (Wednesdays) with Ka Mentong Laurel, and Ipa-Rush Kay Paras with former Secretary Jacinto Paras (Tuesdays and Thursdays). His personal vlog is @AdoPaglinawan.
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