The Road Not Taken

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

The Road Not Taken

The governor was very mad when he entered the office of the lady auditor at the Provincial Capitol. Upon seeing her, he asked the lady with a reprimanding voice; “Why did you leak the information? Look at this newspaper, how did he know about it?”

That was 2008 when Gov. Niel Tupas is still ruling the kingdom by the River. The auditor is Mrs. Haydee Pasuelo of the Commission on Audit (COA), who latter become a recipient of multi-national awards for dedicated public service.

The expose’ is all about the overpriced autoclave sterilizing machine purchased by the province for one of the twelve hospitals being subsidized by the Iloilo Provincial government. In fairness to the governor, the deal was consummated while he is out of office on official business.

It was a handiwork of the two underlings he had been tapping, his tailor and the provincial administrator. But the governor who is already in the pot jumped into the fire to defend his stooges. He doesn’t have the faintest idea that it is hard to defend errant clients.

The lady auditor who is innocent of the issue stood pat in denying she has no idea who leaked the information to the print media. But everyone with access to the Bids and Awards Committee’s (BAC) office suddenly panicked for fear to become a suspect of the governor about the leakage of the information.

In eagerness to discover how the autoclave machine became a Capitol mess, auditor Pasuelo, with the help of the publisher, found her way to get in touch with me. But other than telling her that if there is smoke there is fire, I told her it came from one of the people in the governor’s circle.

Gov. Tupas gives his trust and confidence to stooges in all business transactions that I never run out of issues against them up to the end of his term.  His cases keep coming in and out of courts because of culpa in vigilando - negligence in supervision of employees.

The overriding objective of criticism is to direct the transformation of Capitol transactions into a transparent governance and dispersal of available funds into useful projects or services. The governor should not resent this unfriendly space as it doesn’t dwell on personal matters.

Taking all the equities of this issue into consideration, I’m sure the trusted aides of the governor must have been whirled into believing their covert undertaking will not be questioned and contested by the auditor or by the recipient hospital.

COA auditors are not mere barking dogs of the government that do not bite.  As they always refused to heed that acquisition should be actual, material, direct and immediate, not contingent or expectant, she gave them the taste of what it takes if the push comes to shove. Well, Injuria non praesumitur - a wrong is not presumed.

As guidelines and rulings contrary hereto or inconsistent therewith had been ignored, the acquisition of the autoclave sterilizing machine began to reek with domino theory, transaction here and there but almost if not all are tainted with controversy.

COA is an entity against whom local government units like the province, city and barangay cannot enforce authority. If COA and the Ombudsman work sincerely hand in hand, maybe only then we can say that “matuwid na daan” is in this country!