2 City Hall execs receive pay despite disallowance

MERCADO (LEFT) & NAVASCUES (RIGHT)

Despite the notices of disallowance issued by state auditors, outgoing City Administrator Lucelle Mercado and executive assistant Belinda Navascues have continued receiving their salaries and allowances.

City Accountant Mark Salomon said Mercado and Navascues will continue receiving their salaries, representation and transportation allowances (RATA), communication allowances, bonuses and honoraria, unless a withholding order is issued by the Commission on Audit (COA).

Acting Cebu City Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña yesterday asked the city legal office to determine the liability of Mercado and Navascues, who should not have been allowed to continue receiving compensation.

“When they received the notice, they should have stopped receiving already. I think they received last February or March. They should have stopped.

Even the appointing officer is personally liable. So that includes the mayor (Michael Rama),” Osmeña said in a press conference yesterday.

COA issued the notices of disallowance after the appointments of Mercado and Navascues were disapproved by the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

The notices were sent to Mercado and Navascues in February and March yet. Salomon said both Mercado and Navascues have filed an appeal before the COA regarding the disallowance.

Under COA’s notices of disallowance, which was signed by audit team leader Daisy Bercede and supervising auditor Cymbeline Celia Uy, their disallowance will become final and executory within six months from receipt.

The whereabouts of Mercado and Navascues were not known yesterday. An office staff said Mercado is on leave and out of the country. She couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday. Navascues is also on leave, but a staff said she was just in Cebu. She did not answer text messages and calls.

“Are they coming back? Mercado is on leave. Belinda is still there. I will check what we can do,” Osmeña said.

Both the appointments of Mercado and Navascues are set to end by June 30 since they are coterminus with suspended Mayor Michael Rama.
City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas said neither Mercado nor Navascues would receive retirement benefits.

“They cannot get. Ma’am Bel (Navascues) is already retired from GSIS so she already received her benefits before. For Dr. Lucelle (Mercado), although she’s already past 60 years old, but her number of years in City Hall is not enough,” Cuevas said.

Employees and officials should have rendered at least 15 years of government service to qualify for retirement benefits.

Mercado was only appointed by Rama as city administrator last 2014 although before that, she was the head of several special bodies including the Cebu City Anti-Indecency Board and the Liquor Licensing Commission.

In their notice of disallowance, COA said they received separate decisions by the CSC in late 2015 disapproving the appointments of the two officials.

COA conducted an audit on the claims of Mercado from her appointment in February 2014 until December 2015 and found that she received a total of P2.27 million during the period.

The amount includes salaries (P1.38 million), RATA (P365,500), communication allowance (P123,993.82), bonuses (P166,056) and honorarium (P240,500).

Navascues, for her part, received a total of P1.02 million during her appointment from January 2015 to December 2015. The amount represents salaries (P621,000), RATA (P90,000), bonuses and allowances (P64,375) and honorarium (P253,250).