The Commission on Audit has lost two of its prized auditors
to still unknown killers in less than a month last October.
The killings, believed to be work-related, shocked the entire
COA Community and Chairman Guillermo N. Carague immediately asked the National
Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police to conduct the
thorough investigation and bring the culprits to justice.
Lawyer Agustin Chan, Jr., Ilocos Sur Provincial Auditor, and
his driver, Alex Recacho, were ambushed and killed by armed men in Barangay
Paing, Bantay town in Ilocos Sur on October 4, 2001.
At about 7:00 P. M. on October 29, 2001, State Auditor IV
Anita Gallito head of the COA Unit at the DECS Division Office in Tandag,
Surigao del Sur, was gunned down in front of her home in Tago town.
The killings, believed to be an offshoot of the performance
of their audit jobs, shocked the entire COA Community and Chairman Guillermo N.
Carague immediately condemned “in strongest terms” the dastardly acts.
In separate letters, the COA Chief asked the National Bureau
of Investigation and the Philippine National Police to investigate the murders
and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Sadly however, weeks after the killings, neither the NBI nor
the PNP has come out with results raising fears that the Chan and Gallito
murders will be consigned to the list of unsolved crimes.
Immediately after the Ilocos Sur ambush-slaying of Auditor
Chan, Chairman Carague ordered the payment of the death benefits to his bereaved
family. He sent AsCom Jorge Perez to Region I to personally convey his
condolences to the grieving Mrs. Evelyn Rulla-Chan, the slain Auditor’s widow,
their children and relatives.
Vigilant groups, including the Ilocos Sur Chapter of the
Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the group called Sisa, are now pressing
for the arrest of the Chan killers and the unmasking of the masterminds behind
the murders.
According to reports reaching COA, Auditor Gallito has just
alighted from a tricycle in front of her home in Tago town, Surigao del Sur,
when she was shot at pointblank range by an armed man that fateful evening of
October 29, 2001.
She came from the DECS Division Office in Tandag where she
worked overtime on a certain audit report on irregularities involving millions
of pesos.
