Worth over P12 million Rama, 3 execs have unsettled cash advances

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and three other City Hall officials reportedly failed to liquidate cash advances worth over P12 million, according to accounting records.

Some of these cash advances, granted to them for various projects in the city, were released since 2011.

Records at the Cebu City Accounting Department showed that Rama still has P557,150 unliquidated cash advances granted to him on May 31 and December 26, 2012.

Rama could not be reached for comment as he is still on his 22-day leave of absence.

However, the mayor’s chief of staff, Philipp Zafra, said that Rama’s name was just being used.

The actual user of the funds, Zafra said, was Alvin Santillana of the Local Disaster Risk-Reduction Management Office.

Zafra explained that Santillana spent the money when he and several City Hall personnel and volunteers travelled to Mindanao bringing medicines, among others, as part of the city’s effort to help typhoon victims there.

Santillana is still collating the documents to support the expenses they incurred during their more than a week of stay in Mindanao.

City accountant Diwa Cuevas said Zafra himself has been granted with P4.5 million while administrative assistant Henry Tomalabcad was also given P2 million from the Intelligence Funds, which are still unliquidated.

Zafra refused to reveal when asked by The FREEMAN about the Intelligence Fund expenses.

“Confidential na in nature kay police matters man ang gigastohan ana sir. Naa sab kang sir Henry ana kay bonded man mi. Both of us were able to liquidate na and these were submitted directly to Manila as a requirement,” he said.

Cuevas said she could not delete the accountability of both Zafra and Tomalabcad from their records until the Commission on Audit-Manila will approve their liquidation papers.

The city auditor said although Zafra had forwarded the transmittal of liquidation documents to COA-Manila, they are still awaiting approval of their liquidation.

“Gi-follow up na namo sigi ngadto sir pero tungod sa kadaghan nga mga LGUs (local government units) dili sila makadali pag-review. What matters most is that we were able to submit our liquidation report to COA central office,” said Zafra.

But Cuevas had withheld the salary of Carlos “Charlie” Reyes, another administrative assistant of the Office of the Mayor, since January because Reyes failed to liquidate the P3,993,200 granted to him on July 3 and August 7, 2012.

Reyes admitted that he was not able to collect his salaries since January because of the unliquidated cash advances.

He was granted P4.687 million for helping various sports activity programs in the barangays.

Reyes had submitted liquidation documents amounting to P693,800 but he has still unliquidated balance of P3.9 million.

Another City Hall administrative assistant, Virgilio Salaum, availed of P1 million cash advance on November 15 last year but the amount remained unliquidated, according to the records.

The COA procedure provides the withholding of salaries once a government official fails to liquidate cash advances after several months. —/LPM (FREEMAN)