No confirmation for Heidi

FRONTLINE
By Ninez Cacho-Olivares

Heidi Mendoza, Noynoy-appointed commissioner of the Commission on Audit (CoA), does not appear to have an easy confirmation process from the Commission on Appointments (CA), if she is at all to be confirmed. But she only has herself to blame.
Oppositors to her confirmation have called her incompetent, untruthful and unfit for the job, along with her alleged vested interests.

The way I see it, Heidi is overrated, but she became the Yellows’ darling when she was called in by Congress as a “star” witness on the payoffs to the military brass. Anything she said then during the hearings, plus her “drama” of being scared and in hiding, along with her lachrymose testimony against the kickbacks, was hailed as truth, even when it was shown that her so-called “audit” was full of holes, especially in the case of her claim that the United Nations funds for the Filipino peacekeepers were pocketed by the military brass.

It turned out that no such thing happened.

It will also be recalled that Heidi Mendoza, proved her “incompetence” as an auditor when she did that very flawed “analysis” of then Chief Justice Renato Corona’s alleged 400 or so bank accounts, which made her a laughing stock both in the auditing and banking world.

But she and the Noynoy-friendly Ombudsman, Conchita Carpio-Morales, wanted a manufactured account of the bank accounts and the amounts in them, to make Corona look like a crook, and the Mendoza analysis, shown during the impeachment trial of Corona, was made to look like he had some $12 million stashed in banks.

It was evident that which Mendoza came up with was a very flawed audit and deliberately done too. Still, as she was a yellow ally and Noynoy-friendly, she was made out by the yellow media to be an expert and a courageous auditor, baring all, when she was not anything of that sort.

Also,  after she was appointed CoA commissioner by Noynoy, she had become an attack dog of sorts for powerful people in Malacañang, to destroy those perceived to be a strong presidential bet in 2016.

It was then time for Heidi to look into the books of Vice President Jojo Binay as mayor, and that of his wife, when she was the mayor of Makati. This was obviously being done to make Binay look like a crook, and thus destroy his chances in 2016.

That it was a demolition job was pretty evident, given that Mendoza didn’t even have the go-signal for the Makati audit, which incidentally, was already done earlier, and which audit had cleared the Binays, from the CoA chief. Mendoza did it on her own.

Mendoza faced stiff opposition from a former CoA auditor and a lawyer, both of whom alleged that Mendoza was incompetent, dishonest.

Mendoza’s oppositors in her confirmation before the CA were former CoA auditor Arturo Besana and Mariano Sarmiento, the  legal counsel of the Vice President.

The report said that Besana had claimed that Mendoza is incompetent, untruthful and is using the agency for her own advantage “especially in bringing herself close to the powers in government.”

He also put into question Mendoza’s credentials due to her alleged lack of experience at being a resident auditor or any other higher position that would qualify her in assuming the duties of a commissioner of the auditing agency.

In her appeal, Mendoza asked members of the commission to “use your conscience” and “degree of judgment to judge me by my experience” by confirming her appointment as CoA commissioner for a term ending on Feb. 2, 2018.

But precisely, if the senators use their judgment, they would find her unfit for the job as CoA commissioner, as she has shown her auditing incompetence too many times. 

As for conscience, perhaps conscience should dictate that as a CoA official, she is too highly partisan and allows herself to be used by the powers to destroy, through her  faulty auditing methods, those whom the powers want to destroy.