Supreme Court ruling clearing officials in anomalous projects backed

MANILA, Philippines — Legal experts yesterday supported the Supreme Court (SC) in its recent ruling clearing ranking government officials who ministerially approved anomalous projects.

Former law deans Tranquil Gervacio Salvador III and Pacifico Agabin said the SC ruling, which held that mere approval of anomalous contracts does not automatically make government officials liable, was correct.

Salvador, former dean of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila law school and president of Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Quezon City chapter, believed that the decision was “a sound and reasonable ruling.”

“This has been well established by jurisprudence and was only reiterated in the Joson ruling,” he explained in a text message. “If the sole participation of the head of the local government unit is just to sign the contract and nothing more, then he should not be held liable.”

Agabin shared Salvador’s opinion and, for his part, stressed that such doctrine is not new.

“I agree with that decision of the (SC),” Agabin, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law, said in a text message.

He explained that this doctrine, which grants ministerial approval of projects by heads of agencies or local executives the presumption of regularity, was already set by the high court in previous rulings and that the latest decision on the case of former Nueva Ecija governor Tomas Joson III is just a reiteration.

In its decision in the Joson case released to the media recently, the high court held that the signatures of local and provincial executives as well as heads of agencies in procurement contracts that are found to be anomalous or irregular cannot suffice to establish their criminal and administrative liabilities.

“Mere signature (of the head of office or local government unit) in the award of the contract and the contract itself without anything more cannot be considered as a presumption of liability,” read the full-court ruling penned by Associate Justice Noel Tijam.

“Liability depends upon the wrong committed and not solely by reason of being the head of a government agency,” the Court stressed.

The SC made this ruling as it cleared Joson who was found liable by the Commission on Audit (COA) over the P155.03-million construction of Nueva Ecija Friendship Hotel, now named Sierra Madre Suites.

The COA issued in 2007 notices of allowances on three contracts signed and approved by Joson with A.V.T. Construction for the project and found him solidarily liable along with members of the Bids and Awards Committee, the BAC Technical Working Group, the provincial accountant and the provincial engineer.

Joson had filed a petition for exclusion from liability, arguing that “the determination of whether a prospective bidder is eligible or not is the exclusive responsibility of the BAC and if there is indeed a liability, the members of the BAC should be held liable since they are the persons directly responsible for the transaction.”

But COA, in its 2015 decision, denied the petition as it ruled that Joson was liable for the disallowed amount since “he failed to exercise due diligence in the performance of his duty.”

The commission also ruled that “being a signatory in the contracts, Joson is presumed to have prior knowledge that the bidding process was tainted with ineligibility.”