Gonzaga, Stephenie Van M.

Audit Insight

In this pandemic crisis wherein, no one ever expect nor foresee that this worst
scenario will happen in the world for a long time, internal auditors should make a plan
ahead from the beginning to avoid further impairment to the company and to the work
itself. Change of plans in an organization is a must during this crisis because no one
can tell what may happen in the next few months. Will it be worst or will it go in a lighter
side? One thing is for sure, we cannot go back to our lives before this COVID-19 crisis
happened because our enemy is truly invisible.

As for the article released by Chambers, the five key actions are must to do. The
first key point is the “Understand and assess the full range of immediate risks” it is true
that before an auditor may start any decisions on his organization, he know first the
background and foundation of the current pandemic. An auditor cannot make a good
plan if he does not know where to start and what kind of battle he is about to face.
Second is the “Assess the organization's existing crisis management and business
continuity plans”. In this stage, after an auditor make a strong foundation about the next
decisions he will about to implement in an organization, he should build a strong fort
using the second key action. An auditor should be able to know the type of risks that
they will be facing if they will continue to work in office. The second key action should be
made for long-term use of an organization because COVID-19 will never vanish easily
like a balloon that were popped in the air. This key action should consider all employees
of an organization, whether it be in skeleton workforce, office employees, low, middle or
upper management. Everyone should be taken in consideration of. As of today, the
most advisable thing to do is to stay at home and work from home as there is no
available COVID-19 vaccine in the market. It will never be safe for everyone to go out
just to work, when we can do it at home. Just make sure that there will always be time
table for every employees and organization should know if their internet connection is
stable or not. Due to the fact that one cannot work if the internet is not good at all. Way
back, internet was only for people who have extra money to avail it, but during this
pandemic crisis, everyone should have “stable” internet connection. If they do not have,
their workload will never be done in due time, as it will truly cause a domino effect for
the whole organization. Third and fourth key actions are “Advise your organization on
thinking beyond immediate risks” and “Advise your organization on thinking about the
long-term implications” Everyone should voice their opinions out because not everything
that an auditor will say can be applied to all. Every person in an organization should
think and analyze on what’s in the box of fighting COVID-19 whilst working. It is truly
good if there is or are persons who serves as leaders based on hierarchy of
organization and there also comes the internal auditors to give their opinions on how to
continue working on our lives while in the midst of pandemic crisis. We should always
prioritize our health but we should also balance it with working because health will never
matter if our economy is on downfall, if our storage boxes do not have any food, if our
pill box do not have any vitamins and other medicines because we are not working to
earn money. It sounds harsh and sad but that is the reality in the world, especially in
Philippines. Whereas Filipinos demand for mass testing, but our government says that
they are not the one who should be liable for it, the private companies should, but that is
not what are constitution says. Also, it is truly sad that they cannot do mass testing to
take care of the lives of our fellow Filipinos, but they are requiring POGO employees to
be tested every fourteen days, in which most of the workers of POGO are Chinese in
which, it simply implies that our government truly cares for Chinese citizens rather than
in their own constituents. So, the organizations should help each other in this pandemic
crisis, and we should not rely and depend much on the government as they are only
thinking what is good for them and not for the whole nation. Like what my professor in
income taxation said “the most common sense in this subject if you are struggling to
choose which of which tax rate is to be used, just think who will benefit the most if such
will be implemented? It should always be the government.” The last key action that an
auditor should do is to “Continue to monitor and update your thinking”. The plan in
actions and strategies for the organization of an auditors might work for a next few
month, but it may change and will not work afterwards because environment and things
are constantly changing. So, the strategies and the fort that an auditor built should be
changed if needed, but if not, it is good that auditors has preserved plans for future
references.