COA asks Ormoc City, where are donations of rice, wheelchairs?

MANILA, Philippines – Be careful what you post on Facebook. This was a lesson learned by the Ormoc City government from the Commission on Audit.

Posts on the official Facebook page of the Ormoc City government showed it had received donations in kind from different groups.

The Commission on Audit checked the status of these donations with the Ormoc City government because it appeared that after these were turned over, as shown on social media posts, the donations were never seen again.

COA said there were indeed proper deliveries by donors and acknowledgment by city officials, as shown on Ormoc City’s official Facebook page.

However, COA said there were no records to show where these donations went after they were handed over.

The state auditors said: “Query with the Accounting Office revealed that it was not aware of the in-kind donations received by the City as posted on Facebook, thus, no accounting entries were made for its recognition and neither distribution sheets on file with their office.”

According to the audit team, among the missing donations were:

• 200 sacks of rice (25 kgs per sack) and 150 boxes of 1L bottled water from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on January 12, 2022;
• 12 tablets (brand not disclosed) from the National Housing Authority (NHA), January 2022;
• 46 wheelchairs from PITMASTER Foundation (Providing Indigent Timely Medical Assistance Service and Targeted Emergency Relief), March 2022;
• 3 sets of weighing scales from Ajinomoto, August 2022;
• 1,000 white T-shirts from Panda City Merchandise Inc. owner James Sy, February 2022; and
• trash bins from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) Region 8, March 2022.

After queries, the City General Services Office (CGSO) told COA that it did not receive the 200 sacks of rice and bottled water intended for victims of Typhoon Odette. The CGSO said the donations were handed over to the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.

But the audit team did not find these at the CRRMO.

“The CDRRMO clarified that the relief goods were merely placed there but immediately transported to Southern Leyte, since that place was determined to be more gravely devastated by the typhoon,” auditors said.

In the social media post about the rice donations, Ormoc City said these were “NGCP’s way to further provide assistance to the City Government of Ormoc in the relief operations.”

The city officials in that Facebook post were acting city mayor Tomas R. Serafica and city councilor Engr. Esteban V. Laurente.

In the COA report, it was explained: “During exit conference, management clarified that the relief goods received by the City Government of Ormoc from NGCP as posted on the Facebook page were not actually intended for the city and were just passed for stocking in the city bodega.”

The state auditors told the CGSO to come up with distribution lists from departments responsible for receiving the in-kind donations.

The incumbent mayor of Ormoc City in Southern Leyte is Lucy Torres Gomez. – Rappler.com