In SunStar Cebu’s headline on Tuesday, the Commission on Audit (COA), in its qualified opinion, raised serious concerns about Mandaue City’s financial management in the City’s 2024 financial statements. COA cited numerous accounting deficiencies, unrecorded assets, and compliance lapses that collectively cast doubt on the accuracy of Mandaue’s year-end financial picture.
According to the news report, COA’s findings were contained in its Executive Summary for Calendar Year 2024, a comprehensive assessment of the city’s finances, operations, and adherence to auditing rules. But this COA opinion could be a good source of materials for political purposes in the next election season.
The learned know that every year COA releases its observations or report on the financial operations of all local governments. These reports are meant to ensure transparency, improve internal controls, and remind public officials of the standards required when handling public funds. But in Mandaue City, as in many cities in the country, the COA findings often take on a second life: they become political ammunition.
It is tempting, especially for a newly installed administration, to point to COA findings from the previous years and use them as proof that the past leadership “mishandled” funds or was “incompetent.” After all, the language of an audit report can sound alarming to the ordinary reader. Words like “non-submission,” “deficiencies,” or “unliquidated balances” can easily be spun into suspicion, even when the findings involve ordinary procedural lapses or easily correctable issues.
While COA findings could not be considered right away as evidence of corruption, in politics nothing is “unmanageable.” They are not even designed to judge intent. COA auditors do not investigate motives; they check compliance. They point out missing documents, delayed reports, lapses in internal control systems, or inconsistencies that require clarification. In many cases, the concerned office later submits the missing paperwork and the matter is resolved. These are part of the normal cycle of auditing—not grounds for branding anyone corrupt.
Yet politically, the incentive to weaponize these findings is strong. It is easy to say, “we inherited a mess,” even when the audit itself does not say so. It is easy to highlight the negative observations while ignoring the explanations or the corrections submitted later. And it is easy to let the public assume wrongdoing where none has been proven because the public rarely reads the full COA report.
This is the risk when COA findings are used more for scoring political points than for strengthening governance: the real purpose of the audit is forgotten. Instead of focusing on improving systems, training staff, meeting submission deadlines, or modernizing financial records, local leaders sink into a cycle of finger-pointing, leaving everyone no wiser on what truly needs fixing.
Mandaue City, like every local government unit, deserves leaders who treat COA reports as opportunities for reform, not as convenient grenades to lob at their predecessors. If the current administration has concerns about the past, the proper course is to seek clarification, comply with COA’s recommendations, or, if warranted, elevate the matter to the Ombudsman, rather than just relying on innuendo and selective interpretation.
The public, for its part, must also be discerning. A COA flag is not a scandal; it is a reminder. It is a prompt for improvement. It is part of the transparency machinery that strengthens democratic governance. What it is not is a shortcut to proving corruption.
In the end, the real measure of a responsible administration is not how loudly it criticizes the past, but how clearly it demonstrates improvement in the present. Mandaue City residents will benefit more from honest reforms than from recycled accusations. COA findings should guide better governance and not become the centerpiece of political theater.