Government auditors said they are having difficulty auditing the expenses of government officials appearing on infomercials on the tri-media due to lack of information from the concerned officials.

Testifying before the sala of Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 22 Judge Marino M. dela Cruz on Friday, representatives of the Commission on Audit (CoA) conceded that they are almost powerless in holding the officials in the infomercials liable because their audit is oftentimes hampered by lack of supporting documents and other evidence.

The CoA auditors who attended the hearing were those from the Pag-Ibig Fund, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Department of National Defense, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Education, Department of Health, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Philippine Information Agency, and the Office of the President.

In their testimony, the auditors all complained of their inability to dig deeper into the finances of government offices because the latter give them only partial and not full information about their cash disbursements.

In the same hearing, a lawyer submitted to the court a summary of infomercials aired on TV by 12 government officials, which showed that more than P117 million had already been spent by the government for these infomercials on print, radio and television.