MANILA, Philippines -- The millions of pesos worth of currency a police general carried to an international law enforcement conference in Russia has been wire-transferred back and is now in the bank account of the Philippine National Police, Interior Secretary General Ronaldo Puno said Monday.

At the same time, Puno clarified that the money, which he and PNP officials said was for the expenses of a top-level police delegation to the 77th Interpol assembly in St. Petersburg, was not a contingency fund after all but a “cash advance.”

“Normally, what happens is the comptroller, and the cashiers, will have cash advances that are on standby for different types of expenses. That is the only thing that he [then comptroller Eliseo dela Paz] could've been authorized with, other than the specific things that were authorized for the trip. But there was no specific authority [for] a so-called contingency fund. I mean, that was mentioned earlier and it was mentioned that it was for contingencies but then it developed and people kept referring to it as a contingency fund. But there's no such thing. It was a cash advance,” he said.

Earlier, both police and interior department officials kept referring to the money found on Dela Paz on October 11 by Russian customs officers at the Moscow airport as a “contingency fund.”

Dela Paz, who was part of the police delegation, retired October 9, while attending the Interpol assembly.

Puno also said he does not know how much Dela Paz had wired from Russia \to the PNP bank account.

He also said that even if Dela Paz has been cleared by Russian customs officials, he will not be spared here from any criminal or administration liability he is proven to have committed.

“Well, in the sense that he is cleared of any violations of Russian customs regulations, [that] is one thing. But that's not what we are going to be looking into. We are going to be looking into violations of Philippine laws, of Napolcom (National Police Commission) policies, rules and regulations, and PNP rules and regulations. So his clearance there has no bearing on the things that are going to happen there and the things that we will look at,” Puno said.

But he added that they will let the Commission on Audit look into the incident, which Puno said is the agency with the “constitutional mandate” to conduct an investigation.

“And if there is no violation of auditing rules, [and] accounting rules and regulations, then we will then proceed to investigate the administrative liabilities of everyone concerned. If there was a violation, then there would be an administrative and criminal component to that and we will charge him. So we will only know, in the Napolcom, to what extent we will have jurisdiction over this based on the report of CoA. So we don't want to prejudge at we don’t want to pre-empt the CoA. They have to come up with the first findings here, which will be basis for the official findings by us,” Puno said.

A source privy to PNP budget matters confirmed that there is no such thing as a “contingency fund” for personnel.

The source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, also said Dela Paz should have declared the P6.9 million found on him, despite it being a cash advance.

“If you have anticipated it, you must have declared it,” the source said.

He added that contingency funds in the PNP are only used for “logistics,” such as building repairs.

Dela Paz is reportedly on his way to Manila and is expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon.