Senate office told to explain P74-million deposits

MANILA, Philippines - Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has asked the Senate’s accounting and finance division to explain the “unaccounted” P74.36-million in bank deposits and other alleged accounting discrepancies brought to his attention by the Commission on Audit.

Andrew Arrieta, officer in charge of the Senate administrative and financial services, said the issues raised by COA were discussed in a meeting with Financial Management Bureau director Fara Villanueva, Property and Procurement Service chief Cynthia Bajamonde, Legislative Accounting Service head Adela Fernandez, and Land Bank of the Philippines senate extension office branch manager Robert Nathaniel Leneola.

“I just would like to inform you when we use ‘unaccounted’ in the accounting parlance, it means the COA has inspected the money and the money was not there,” Arrieta explained.

Fernandez said that as far as the Senate is concerned, the P74.36-million has been accounted for.

Of the P74.36-million, more than P23 million comprised negotiated checks while the remaining the P50.6 million had been reverted to the national treasurer as unutilized Notice of Cash Allotment or NCA.

The Department of Budget and Management releases the NCA to cover the regular requirement of agencies and institutions like the Senate.

Fernandez said the delay in the delivery of the statement of accounts was one of the reasons for the existence of what appeared to be unaccounted fund. 

“Magulo ang records ng bank (The bank records are a mess)… It’s not actually in our books but in the Land Bank because the bank was unable to balance. This is not the books of the Senate but the books of the Land Bank,” Fernandez said.

“We were aware that these were not reported because they fail to revert every month,” she added.

“Actually, the bank has not reverted the amount at that time,” Fernandez said, citing a circular from the DBM dated Dec. 8, 2009 which provided that “any unutilized NCA corresponding to the book balance shall automatically lapse at the end of that month.”

“It means there was money at the bank but it was not reflected…Actually, in our book of accounts, wala na kaming pera sa aming (there’s no more money in our) records,” Fernandez said.