By Charmaine P. Lirio
WHEN Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan assumed her post as chairperson of the Commission on Audit (COA) in 2012, she alerted officials on the huge amounts of unliquidated cash advances (CAs) in many agencies.
Pulido-Tan’s term has already ended yet still the problem she pointed out early on still persists, even in the Office of the President and the Senate.
Recently released COA agency audit reports show that between themselves alone, the Office of the President (OP) and the Senate have unliquidated cash advances of a combined total of P689.53 million.
The OP has P452.61 million P436.93 million of unsettled CAs, of which P436.93 million were amounts incurred by from the time of deposed president Ferdinand Marcos to detained president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
To be sure, the COA report indicates that the OP under Benigno S. Aquino III has the highest settlement rate among the presidents, it still had to settle P11 million in unliquidated cash advances.
The Senators were not as exemplary. COA said they have P252.6 million in outstanding cash advances as of December 2013.
To make matters worse, the COA reports mote that officials in the OP and the Senate have been granted further cash advances even though they have not yet settled the prior amounts that had been entrusted to them. Such practice is contrary to the rules of COA and Presidential Decree No. 1445 or the Auditing Code of the Philippines.
The COA report enrolled the Senate’s reply to the audit observation: “[The management] stated that the Senators had already submitted their liquidation documents but these are not yet recorded in the books of accounts pending review of all supporting documents.”
Cash advances are given to officials for instances where payment by check is difficult, impractical or impossible. According to COA rules, CAs may be granted for salaries and wages, commutable allowances, honoraria, petty operating expenses, as well as current operating expenditures of agency field offices and official travel expenditures.
Section 89 of the Auditing Code states that cash advances have to be reported and liquidated as soon as the purpose for which they were issued has been served. Officials with unsettled or unliquidated previous CAs are also not allowed to receive additional advances until they submit a proper accounting of the funds.
CAs are settled either by the return of the money if unspent, or by the presentation of proper vouchers, receipts or evidence of payment showing details of how the CAs were used.
Failure to render accounts for public funds is a criminal offense punishable with imprisonment of up to six years under the Revised Penal Code.
Likewise, if a public official in charge of public funds or property fails to have such funds or property “duly forthcoming” upon demand by an authorized officer like auditors from the COA, the law presumes that the crime of malversation has been committed.
It “shall be prima facie evidence that [the officer] has put such missing funds or property to personal use.”