CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Audit has ordered Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and seven other members of the Board of Directors of Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority to reimburse the P500,000 that they have granted as severance pay to former tourism regional director Patria Aurora Roa last July 7.
Garcia who is sitting as an ex-officio member of the MCIAA Board being the governor of Cebu was one of the seven members of the airport’s policy-making body that approved the granting of the P500,000 severance pay to Roa.
They gave it to her for the reason that the Roa had served the MCIAA for the past 15 years.
Aside from Garcia, the other MCIAA Board members, who were ordered to reimburse the government, are former Mactan Airport general manager Danilo Augusto Francia, Alfonso Cusi, Maria Lourdes Dedal, Valeriano “Bobit” Avila, Gordon Alan Joseph and Winglip Chang.
Anecita Pilapil, the supervising auditor assigned to the Mactan Cebu International Airport, included Roa in the order of disallowance, because she was the one who received the check that was approved by Francia and was personally delivered to her by the airport’s corporate secretary.
Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago had called lawyer Glenn Napuli of the airport’s legal department and advised him to inform the MCIAA officials not to release the check pending the results of its inquiry into the validity of the transaction, but board secretary Evelyn Ramirez took the check and brought it to Roa’s house.
Pilapil advised Catherine P. Sepulveda, the head of the airport’s finance department, to direct the persons concerned to settle immediately the disallowance.
The state auditor explained that if the audit disallowance will not be appealed within six months period from the date of receipt of the notices it shall become final and executory as provided for by Section 48 and 51 of the Government Accounting and Auditing Manual.
The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas is also conducting a separate investigation into the questionable release of such severance pay to Roa although Santiago is very tight-lipped of any development of their probe.
Pilapil explained that such severance pay given to Roa was disallowed by the state auditors because it was made lack of legal basis and is prohibited under the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Circular Letter 2002-02.
It states that “Department Secretaries, Undersecretaries and Assistant Secretaries, who serve as ex-officio members of the Board of Directors of government corporations are not entitled to any remuneration in line with the Supreme Court ruling that their services in the board are already paid and covered by remuneration attached to their offices.”
The DBM has cited the case of Civil Liberties Union vs. Executive Secretary where the Supreme Court ruled that “the ex-officio position being actually and in legal contemplation part of the principal office, it follows that the official concerned has no right to receive additional compensation for his services in the said position.”
In the case of Roa, she was allowed to sit as an ex-officio member of the MCIAA Board as alternate member representing the Secretary of the Department of Tourism.
Pilapil added that a similar transaction entered into by the MCIAA when it gave a severance pay to a retired Undersecretary of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) in 2003 was also disallowed and a final order of adjudication was already issued on February 10, 2006.
As a member of the MCIAA Board, Roa used to receive P30,000 every month for attending two meetings monthly.
The former airport manager had insisted that the granting of such benefits to Roa is aboveboard because the law empowered the MCIAA to make plans to give retirement benefits to its employees, including the members of the board.
Francia was recently replaced by Engr. Nigel Paul Villarete. — /NLQ (FREEMAN)