The House subcommittee on budget amendments on Wednesday approved a special provision in the proposed 2026 national budget setting a deadline for the Commission on Audit (COA) to publish its annual audit reports (AARs).
During a meeting led by House appropriations chair and Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Suansing, the budget amendments review subcommittee (BARSc) approved an amendment to Section 103 of House Bill No. 4058 requiring the COA to publish its AARs ‘on or before Oct. 31 of the following year.’
Based on the matrix comparing the changes for HB 4058, COA Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba proposed that the deadline be set for August 15 of the following year. This would have been within the usual timeframe for Congress to begin budget deliberations for the next fiscal year. The BARSc did not explain why it chose October instead. However, this was still a slight improvement over the 2023-2025 General Appropriations Acts (GAA), which included a provision mandating agencies to submit to the COA a status report on their audit observations and recommendations within 60 days of receiving the AAR.
During the budget deliberations for COA last year, Assistant Commissioner Alexander Juliano stated that this clause required them to wait for the agency’s response to their initial findings before publishing the AAR.
As a result, the state auditor published most of its 2023 AARs only in December 2024. Even now, the 2024 AARs are still incomplete even though Congress was already at the final stretch of the 2026 budget deliberations.
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Civil society watchdogs have argued that the timely release of COA reports could help Congress more prudently allocate public funds.
Last August, Suansing promised she would study the ‘historical reasoning’ behind this GAA provision.
Additionally, the BARSc approved an amendment to Section 103, which states that the agencies concerned shall submit a status report to the COA on the actions taken in response to its audit observations and recommendations. The COA shall then publish the status report as an appendix to the AAR of the agency involved.
Before this, AARs – including the explanations of the agencies -were usually published starting June so that the findings could be included in budget deliberations.