Senate bet Heidi Mendoza knows where the money goes

NO RUBBER STAMP Senatorial candidate Heidi Mendoza, a former Commission on Audit commissioner, offers to voters her track record as a watchdog of public spending and accountability. —PHOTO FROM HEIDI MENDOZA FACEBOOK PAGE

The Commission on Audit (COA) is supposed to be a bulwark against corruption. Heidi Mendoza, a former COA commissioner who is running for senator, knows this well, and it frustrates her to see it falter.

Last February, the Supreme Court excused COA Commissioner Douglas Michael Mallillin from further participating in hearings on the constitutionality of the transfer of funds from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to the national treasury after appearing to defend the Department of Finance, which pushed the transfer.

“Dapat, kung COA ka, independent ka (If you’re COA, you should be independent). You’re part of the government, but you’re supposed to be independent. In fairness to him, he tried,” Mendoza told this writer.

Mendoza served as COA commissioner for almost five years, including as officer in charge from February to March 2015. It was under her tutelage that the agency and its commissioners played a more adversarial and educative role.

Watchdog, not rubber stamp

For the 62-year-old, who spent decades in government auditing, the COA was never meant to be a rubber stamp but a watchdog against inefficiency and theft. It was a role she embraced with tenacity at great personal cost.

READ: Edu Manzano supports Heidi Mendoza’s senatorial bid: Walang political dynasty

“Everybody sacrificed that time,” she said. “I kept thinking I could have chosen a different life.”

Born and raised as a policeman’s daughter in Tayabas, Quezon, Mendoza earned her accountancy degree from Sacred Heart College of Lucena in 1983 and became a certified public accountant a year later. She has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of the Philippines Diliman and in national security administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines.

Unlike her counterparts, Mendoza isn’t coming off a secretary position or a stint in local politics. “I started from the bottom. I was an auditing aide; I think that was salary grade 4. And I rose through the ranks,” she said.

Standing her ground

Post-COA, she served as undersecretary general for internal oversight services of the United Nations. Before the COA, she was a consultant to the Asian Development Bank and a member of the board of advisers of the Ateneo School of Government.

Mendoza is no stranger to the cost of standing her ground in government. In 2011, she took the stand in Congress to testify against the misuse of billions of pesos meant for soldiers’ salaries and pensions. The exposé led to high-profile resignations, building her reputation as a staunch anticorruption advocate.

It wasn’t an easy time then. She recalls one night when her security separated her from her children for safety.

She was passing the time watching TV when her phone rang. She was confident that no one had that phone number. It was silent at the other end. Then, she heard the same TV program she was watching in the background.

The message was clear: someone knew where she was and what she was doing. “Parang tumayo lahat ng balahibo ko (It was like all my hair stood on end),” she recalled.

READ: Duterte rebukes ex-COA exec Heidi Mendoza

Frank to a fault

Mendoza is frank to a fault. She went viral in April after expressing opposition to same-sex marriage during a political debate. She said that “true love knows how to recognize and respect institutions. In the family code, we will have disagreements.”

She later clarified her position, emphasizing her respect for the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Let’s love. I respect this alongside the LGBT community. So, my call is simple: ‘Let’s fix the system. Not just declarations. Not just shallow voting. I am not against love. We are against a system that refuses to honor it,” she wrote.

In a Facebook post on April 10, Mendoza apologized for hurting the LGBTQIA+ community.

“I will not stand in the way of same-sex unions becoming law. My job is not to impose personal doctrine. It is to serve justice,” she said.

Fear of karma

Mendoza’s biggest frustration is complacency in government, which she’d come face-to-face with.

She once rejected a bribe. “Ibinaba ang envelope sa table ko. Ang sabi, ‘Pag hindi mo tinanggap ito, may ibang tatanggap nito’ (The envelope was placed on my table. I was told, ‘If you won’t get it, someone else will’),” she said.

She said she had a great fear of karma hitting back because she didn’t do “what I need to do and played around with people’s trust.”

A week after the COA official was flagged by the high court, a newly retrofitted bridge in Isabela collapsed. Authorities attributed this to “under-design.”

Abstract, distant ideas

“Nung bumagsak yung tulay, sabi ko, ngayon n’yo sabihin na hindi mahalaga ang usaping katiwalian (After the bridge collapsed, I said, ‘Now you tell me that the issue of corruption is unimportant),’” she said.

Running on a platform of transparency and good governance, Mendoza admits that these lofty ideals are abstract and distant to ordinary Filipinos. But she hopes her campaign will make the Filipino people imagine their condition.

“Kung may budget na tama, sapat, at hindi nananakaw, may budget ka sa pagpapagawa ng kalye kung saan yung mga pananim at mga ani ay hindi masyadong magastos mula sa taniman hanggang sa mercado (If you have the right budget, which is sufficient and the money isn’t stolen, then you will have a budget to build roads where the produce and the harvest won’t cost so much to bring from the farm to the market),” she said.

READ: Heidi Mendoza a woman of integrity, says Palace on UN job

“May budget para sa libreng paaralan, libreng libro (You will have a budget for free education, free books),” she said. “Kung walang katiwalian, may access ang mga tao sa basic services (If there are no irregularities, the people will have access to basic services).”

Mendoza is aware of the main criticism of her campaign: that the legislature is no place for an auditor.

Making issues tangible

But this is what she sees herself taking to the Senate: an understanding that accountability and good governance can be tangible issues close to Filipinos and not a vague ideal.

“When we are trying to encourage citizens to join the audit process, ang tanong sa amin, paano po kami magbabantay, eh meron po kaming hanap buhay (the question to us is, how can we keep watch when we have to earn a living).’ Because of that, I’ve seen na napaka precious nitong pera ng bayan (how very precious the people’s money is),” she said.

At the end of the day, the former state auditor says she is someone you can trust to respect the sanctity of public funds, especially in the Senate, whose responsibilities include scrutinizing the national budget.

“We have to be the strength of the bureaucracy. If something is wrong, it’s wrong. Napakahirap maging matinong tao sa gobyerno. Napakaraming tukso (It is so hard to be an honest person in government. There are so many temptations),” she said.

No machinery, just hope

If the medium is the message, Mendoza’s campaign speaks for herself: she’s running with neither money nor machinery, and her only hope is that the race is one of possibilities.

“Tama na yung usapan kung sino ang namigay ng ayuda. This time, pag-usapan natin yung pag-aambag ng ordinaryong mamamayan, gaano man sila kagipit. Kung nagagawa mong pakilusin ang tao nang walang hinihintay na kapalit, ito yung perfect na antidote sa korapsyon (Enough with talk of who is giving assistance. This time, let’s talk about the contributions of ordinary citizens, however difficult it is for them. If you are able to mobilize the people who do not expect anything in exchange, that would be the perfect antidote to corruption),” she said. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH