Information is coming in trickles but the file already reported is staggering and mind boggling. I am referring to the celebrated P10 billion PDAF scam reportedly engineered by Janet Lim-Napoles through her JLN Corporation-organized non-government organizations (NGOs) over the last ten (10) years. Now we read from news reports that Janet Lim-Napoles has 28 houses in different posh villages of the country and abroad. This is not counting the more than a dozen luxury vehicles that she has. I read the verbatim account of her visit to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) office serialized by PDI last week. Either she is a dumb lady who got lucky for the last ten years or she is the best con woman the Philippines ever had. How Napoles continued to operate and amass wealth using the PDAF and other government funds for 10 years without COA unable to detect and stop is equally mind boggling. It took a whistle blower – Benhur Luy together with former co-employees – to spill the beans, so to speak. It is no surprise anymore that she was quoted to have said that she controls government. Now she is a fugitive of the law.

If she did not detain Benhur Luy as reported for the measly P300,000 that the whistle blower deposited in his account, Janet Lim-Napoles and her ilk could still be riding high now and continue to raid government of people’s tax money for her high profile lifestyle. She could have bought more properties and construct more houses for someone, we don’t know who, to live. Why she even conned some men of the cloth with her front charity works. Oh the greedy will always commit a mistake that will put an end to his/her illegal and immoral activity. No one escapes divine retribution. So why was the Commission on Audit (COA) not able to uncover the anomalous transactions of JLN Corporation and its bogus NGOs for the last 10 years? We may never know the reason. Or maybe we will after the Department of Justice has completed its investigation thru the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Now we look at COA with suspicion because it has not done its constitutional mandate to make sure that government and ultimately the people are not defrauded, shortchanged, disadvantaged after every transaction that involves expenses of government funds. It goes to show therefore that when COA does its job of safeguarding the legality of government expenses, people should be happy. Those in government who implement government programs and projects should be equally happy for it means that everything that they do is above board.

It should not therefore irk government agencies and their officials if COA calls their attention on certain transactions involving government funds through audit memorandum observation (AOM) because it means COA, just like them, is doing its job. So if a provincial , city or municipal government receives AOMs, it can be that they are not following standard government procedures in spending government money, or they might be making short cuts of these procedures. AOMs are not something to be worried because they are meant to correct what is incorrect and prevent possible corrupt practices from going on for years as what happened to the PDAF. Let us not wait for whistle blowers to surface, too, on the local level. It can only put a lot of people to embarrassment and possibly prison terms. On the other hand COA should be circumspect enough to draw the line from what is blatant disregard of laws and regulations and a heart for the good that the transaction will bring to the people or the result on the over-all governance. This can be had from the justifications that the affected agency or local government submits in answer to the AOMs. I’d rather have a strict and performing COA than one that keeps silent. With the former we know people’s money is safeguarded. With the latter we are assured of the JLN type of scam perpetuated.