President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said the Commission on Audit (COA) should stop flagging government agencies' transactions as it cause a ''taint of corruption by perception."
“Stop that flagging, go***mnit. You make a report, do not flag. Do not publish it because it will condemn the agency or the person you are flagging,” Duterte said in his weekly tapped address to the nation on late Monday night.
“What you are doing is flogging. Striking. Please don’t. You keep on flagging but then nobody gets jailed, nobody at all. When you flag, there is already a taint of corruption by perception,” he continued.
According to Duterte, the PHP 67.3 billion deficiencies found by the COA earlier in the COVID-19 response of the Department of Health in 2020 were due to "incomplete paperwork."
"May mga project tayo, malaking project, so ngayon mayroong talagang mga papel papel na hindi masyadong kumpleto sa paperwork ," Duterte said.
The President continued saying the COA should not conduct an audit about government work that was still ongoing.
"The papers they (COA) are holding, in their custody are really insufficient... Don’t conduct an audit on our work na ongoing pa," he said.
The President then told his Cabinet members to "ignore" the audit reports made by the COA.
“Don't follow COA…nothing happens anyway. That's what I don't like, that flagging,” he said.
