The Commission on Audit (COA) findings which declared the P20,000 calamity aid approved by the Cebu City Council as “illegal” is welcome news to those who opposed it and fodder for those out to get Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, who earlier said he used his share to pay for electric bills and other expenses.
The auditor said “the payment of P83.48 million was considered irregular and therefore disallowed in audit.” One gross lapse was that no evidence was shown that the cash recipients, namely City Hall officials and employees, were actually calamity victims of the 2013 earthquake and supertyphoon Yolanda.
The COA found other transgressions. It cited the Local Government Code which doesn’t authorize the use of a supplemental budget to allocate calamity aid to government employees even in times of public calamity.
Government funds, according to the Code, should be spent to pay for supplies, materials and services urgently needed to prevent loss of life and property in areas declared under a calamity state.
The COA report was dated in June, with a six month window of appeal. But strangely the document “arrived” only last week in City Hall extending the deadline to June this year.
Beyond this period, if COA doesn’t reverse itself or get stopped by a higher body, the disallowance becomes final and executory.
Even before that time, City Hall personnel, high and low, have been asked to “settle” their disallowance, in other words, refund the city government.
Vice Mayor Edgar Labella, being the seasoned lawyer among the respondents, said with confidence that they would file a motion for reconsideration and, if needed, elevate the issue to COA’s central office.
Or they could simply refund the money which Councilor Alvin Dizon did after City Hall was skewered by critics over granting the P20,000 calamity aid in late 2013.
At the time, public attention was on real victims of Yolanda – roofless, homeless, food-deprived residents of northern Cebu, and Eastern Visayas.
Many local governments and private companies waived their Christmas parties and gifts to contribute to the relief effort. So it was an awkward gesture for Cebu City Hall officials to grant unto themselves a P20,000 cash gift for staff and elected officials. They believed this would tolerated by a forgiving public and even seen as a pat on the back for services rendered during the emergency.
With one hand asking employees to contribute to the calamity relief effort, the other hand bestowed P20,000 per employee and official to ease the loss of a hefty holiday incentive that year.
The self-serving gift was bound to catch up with them. As a City Hall employee, who would refuse a cash gift on Christmas?
The greater blame falls on their bosses who took the risk of stretching the definition of “calamity victim” in violation of a raft of government rules on the use of cash advances, supplemental budgets and misreading the scope of calamity compassion.
If any reconsideration must be given, it should be limited to the employees.
The officials, who knew better, should just pay up.
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