Auditing the Ampatuans

Political control begets fiscal control – a truism that has been tried and tested, but for bad results, in Maguindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

In this, the last of our three-part investigative report on the wealth of the Ampatuans, we reveal how multiple permutations of possibly the same expense items, as well as various ways to fudge, confuse, and distort budget and disbursement processes in government, could lead the Commission on Audit to utter confusion.

The tragic results would be clear only later, in terms of squandered public monies, squandered opportunities to educate and ennoble the poor, and political alliances defined by largesse.

This report comes with a sidebar story on the dozens of top-line vehicles that had been registered in the names of the senior Ampatuan clan members – as well as many others for which the Land Transportation Office has no records at all.