Published: 8 February 2023
The Commission on Audit (COA) moves to modernize public auditing practice through shift from paper-based to digital-driven audits. In a recently published PICPA Talks column of the Manila Bulletin, COA Commissioner Roland C. Pondoc reported that COA is implementing an Audit Modernization Program by optimizing the use of science, technology, and innovation to enhance COA’s resilience in times of crises or emergencies such as the pandemic.
Commissioner Pondoc discussed the five major initiatives of COA’s Audit Modernization Program:
1) Development of Audit Service Continuity Plan which contains continuity strategies and mechanisms in dealing with the adverse impacts of any disruptive events and aims to safeguard personnel by providing them with tools and skills to capacitate them;
2) Building capacity to perform remote audit through the use of the Electronic Document Portal which is a facility enabling state auditors to request for audit documents from the auditees remotely and the submission of documents in electronic form;
3) Use of Business Intelligence, Advanced Data Analysis and Machine Learning Capabilities to perform heavy analysis on the entire population of data;
4) Building up COA’s capability to electronically accept records and to securely store the same to effectively centralize COA’s storage for digital documents sufficient enough to support the influx of incoming electronic data from the entire government; and
5) The development and use of an information system that will allow the online filing of pleadings and accept electronic mode of payment for the same.
Shifting to digital-driven audits and modernizing COA’s audit programs will make the work of state auditors easier and more effective. According to Commissioner Pondoc, these initiatives are “imprints of how COA tries its best to bring forth excellence despite the challenges to provide every Filipino the kind of government that we can all be proud of.”
The COVID-19 pandemic might have altered the public auditing landscape but it also opened up opportunities for the Commission to develop more creative and effective ways of performing its audit functions. # – Commissioner Pondoc’s article was published in the 06 February 2023 issue of the Manila Bulletin under its PICPA Talks column, Business Section, page B-3. #