“GUSTO KO makita ‘yong audit talaga na totoo ng Red Cross. And maybe I can. I will demand, the executive department will demand that we be furnished a copy of your audit taken by COA and COA to give us the copy so we can review also what you have audited at tingnan namin kung tama o hindi. Mas mabuti na ‘yang gano’n.
“Let us be open to everybody. You open your books, and I open mine, and you can read all that is entered there, and I also examine what you have done so it will be a fair scheme for everybody.”
So rambled President Duterte in his Thursday nighttime taped broadcast.
PRC is an NGO
THE PHILIPPINE Red Cross Act of 2009 (RA 10072) declares the PRC is “recognized as the voluntary, independent and autonomous nongovernmental society auxiliary to the authorities of the Republic of the Philippines in the humanitarian field.”
The Supreme Court en banc also ruled in July 2009 (GR 175352 – Dante Liban, et al vs. Richard J. Gordon) that the PRC is a non-government humanitarian organization that does not have government assets and does not receive appropriation from the Philippine Congress.
The ruling explicitly added that the PRC “cannot be owned or controlled by the government. Indeed, the Philippine government does not own the PNRC.”
COA can?
NOTWITHSTANDING THE status of PRC as an NGO, RA 10072 also provided that the PRC should “submit to the President of the Philippines an annual report containing its activities and showing its financial condition” at the end of every calendar year.
In a circular released in 1995, the COA said it can conduct special audits on NGOs “upon request by proper authorities or as determined by the Chairman.”
“As determined by the Chairman.” There’s the rub. With media reports
