MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has questioned the P10.609 million in bonuses and allowances that the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) granted to its 30 board members, including chair Rachel Arenas in 2017.
In a report published on the COA website on Friday, the audit body said that for 2017 the board members received a total of P14.8 million in allowances and bonuses.
Of the figure, P10.60 million was drawn from the board’s special or sinking fund despite the lack of supporting documents, including the required approval of the Office of the President (OP) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
In a statement issued yesterday, Arenas said the amount of monitoring allowance received by the board is authorized under the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
“The board members, being a working board, are compensated for their services by way of monitoring allowances only because they are not paid any salary. They have been receiving their monitoring allowances for more than a decade. Being a working board, they reviewed almost 200,000 materials for the year 2017,” Arenas said.
She said they have submitted to the COA all the supporting documents to justify the allowances and bonuses granted to the board members.
“An audit observation is not a suspension nor a disallowance, and does not constitute any form of negative audit action. In this case, COA simply wants MTRCB to submit documents to support the disbursements, which the MTRCB has already complied with in terms of a reply,” she said.
Arenas said the grant of Optical Media Board (OMB) emoluments, compensation for excess of review attendance and reimbursable expenses for activities is allowed under Section 20 of Presidential Decree 1986.
The COA said of the total amount the board members received, 35.89 percent or P5.22 million pertains to additional benefits for regular functions, which are part of their official mandate.
A breakdown of the allowances and bonuses granted to the members include per diem for board meetings amounting P2.69 million; representation and transportation allowance (RATA), P1.50 million; monitoring expenses, P5.39 million; OMB emoluments, P1.93 million; in excess of 10 days review attendance, P443,200, and board committee activities representation allowance, P2.85 million.
The COA said that of the granted bonuses and allowance, only the per diem for board meetings and the RATA were drawn from MTRCB’s regular fund.
The rest were sourced from the agency’s special or sinking fund, which consists of all fees and charges levied, assessed and collected by the board.
State auditors said that while Presidential Decree 1986 – which established the MTRCB – provides that the sinking fund should be at the immediate disposal of the Board, it must be used exclusively for the operational and administrative expenses of the board.
“Operational and administrative expenses as contemplated under Section 20 of PD 1986 pertains to expenses incurred in the pursuance of the mandate of the board, i.e., the MTRCB, and not the allowances or reimbursable expenses of the BMs,” the COA said, referring to board members.
It said the board members should not have been granted any monitoring expenses as this was not among their functions.
“Monitoring expenses were incurred in monitoring compliance of entities in Metro Manila as well as those located in the regions. Monitoring activities were undertaken by the monitoring and inspection unit and were not among the functions of BMs as contemplated in PD No. 1986,” the COA report said.
It said that while the 2016 GAA authorized the grant of P14,000 per month for each board member as monitoring expenses, such provision was no longer included in the 2017 GAA.
The COA questioned why the board members were granted emoluments from the OMB for the supposed review of optical media items such as CDs and DVDs in line with the passage of Republic Act 9239 or the Optical Media Act of 2003, which transferred the classification function of the OMB to MTRCB.
“OMB emoluments pertained to amounts granted to BMs for the review of materials in optical media like CDs, DVDs, etc. As a basic principle, additional benefits are not allowed for services rendered which are inherent to the functions for which one is already compensated,” the COA said.
“The review of motion pictures and television programs in whatever medium is among the powers and functions vested to the board as provided under PD 1986,” it said.
The COA said the the MTRCB approved Board Resolution 003-2017 granting additional allowances for board members who render review sessions in excess of the 10 minimum review sessions per month.
It said the resolution cited PD 1986 as basis for the grant of additional review session allowance to be drawn from the sinking fund.
It directed the MTRCB to submit all documents to support the grant of the allowances and bonuses, including the approval from the OP and the DBM.