MANILA - The Commission on Audit on Tuesday said it was not targeting lawmakers when it conducted a special audit of pork barrel allocations from 2007 to 2009. COA Chairwoman Grace Pulido Tan said the special audit actually covered government agencies which received the biggest disbursements from the budget department and it was only consequential that the names of several lawmakers kept cropping up. She said since the audit was conducted in 2010, it was natural for the agency to look only at transactions from the previous three years. Tan assured that due to the anomalies they discovered, COA will continue to audit the use of the pork barrel from 2010 to 2012. "We were not auditing the legislators. We were auditing the agencies, LGUs kasi eto yun mga ahensya na from 2007 to 2009 pinakamalaki yung nakuha sa DBM kaya lumabas yung mga pangalan nila," she said. Tan noted that COA was surprised that the same names kept cropping up during the audit. She said the same lawmakers kept allocating funds to the same implementing agencies, which then transmitted the funds to the Napoles-linked NGOs. She said lawmakers and implementing agencies are both responsible in ensuring the appropriate use of the priority development assistance funds (PDAF). "In terms of the accountability of the funds, the primary responsibility rests on the head of the agency. But remember sa memorandum of agreement, tripartite ito. Pirmado ng legislator. In this MOA, nakaspell out ang duties. lahat sila may kanya-kanyang pananagutan. I can't imagine how anyone can say na walang kinalaman yun legislator dyan," she said. Mornings@ANC, September 17, 2013