COA Witness: Food, Supply Purchases Need Official Receipts

The auditor-witness of the House prosecution testified on Tuesday, Aug. 11, that legitimate official receipts should be submitted to liquidate purchases of food and supplies using confidential funds, distinguishing them from mere acknowledgment receipts.

Accountant Xylene Mae del Campo, supervising auditor of the Commission on Audit (COA), told the Senate impeachment court that purchases of supplies and food, contrary to what Vice President Sara Duterte did, require official receipts.

“The purchase of food and supplies in itself doesn’t need confidentiality,” she told the court when presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero sought clarity on the submission of liquidation papers.

Del Campo agreed with Escudero’s distinction between payments for information and rewards, with the latter requiring proof of the success of an operation.

“Let’s distinguish the payment for reward and payment for information. The payment for reward, that is where you (COA) are seeking proof for success (of operations),” Escudero told the witness.

Del Campo said this distinction was behind the changes in COA’s findings against the Office of the Vice President, from an audit observation memorandum to a notice of suspension and later to notices of disallowance, as auditors had to distinguish legitimate supporting documents from mere acknowledgment receipts.

“We (COA) did not disallow the purchase of information,” Del Campo clarified.

The testimony raised more questions from House prosecutors about the use of the confidential funds of the OVP and the Department of Education when Duterte headed both offices.

Rep. Terry Ridon, one of the 11 congressmen-prosecutors, said Duterte should attend the impeachment trial and take the witness stand to explain where the P612.5 million in confidential funds went.

Meanwhile, the COA is studying whether to reopen settled accounts involving DepEd confidential funds that had initially been cleared after new information surfaced.

During the trial, senators questioned Del Campo about the P125 million in confidential funds that the OVP spent in 11 days, from Dec. 21 to 31, 2022.

Asked by Sen. Francis Pangilinan whether the spending was “illegal or irregular,” Del Campo said it was “irregular” because no documents compliant with the circular were submitted to explain the expenditure.

Sen. Raffy Tulfo, for his part, focused on P16 million spent on the rental and maintenance of 34 safehouses during the same 11-day period. He calculated that the daily rent for each safehouse would amount to P42,780.

Del Campo said the acknowledgment receipts did not indicate the addresses of the safehouses.

When Tulfo asked whether the amounts were “excessive, abusive or out of this world amounts,” Del Campo said they were “expensive” for rent payments, but COA had to rely on the disbursing officer’s certification that they were necessary and legal. – With Neil Jayson Servallos, Marc Jayson Cayabyab