COA nixes DepEd execs’ P15K a day ‘extra duty’
By Jerry E. Esplanada
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:04:00 08/08/2008
MANILA, Philippines—For taking part, however briefly, in department-sponsored seminars and training programs, an undisclosed number of Department of Education (DepEd) officials have been charging up to P15,000 a day for what is called an “extra-duty allowance,” or EDA.
The EDA, which the Commission on Audit says is not covered by any department guidelines and therefore has no legal basis, has cost the agency between P30 million and P50 million, according to DepEd sources.
“Some of the undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and directors attend an average of four to eight training programs a month where they receive from P10,000 to P15,000 for merely making opening or closing remarks,” the sources said.
“To think that delivering a brief speech or sharing their views on DepEd-related topics with training participants are part of their official functions,” they said.
The DepEd has six undersecretaries, seven assistant secretaries and 12 central office-based directors, among other top department officials.
Suspended
Before leaving for an official trip to Hawaii last week, Education Secretary Jesli A. Lapus said all EDA payments have been suspended as “part of the streamlining operations of the department”.
Lapus also directed Teodosio Sangil Jr., the undersecretary for finance and administration, to come up with EDA guidelines.
Sangil said that without the guidelines, EDA is “like a wayward bus, a bus without a driver ... like we are all blind.”
He said the EDA system was already in place when he joined the department in 2006.
“There’s really a need for control mechanisms, like close monitoring of these training programs, reviewing, streamlining and refining operations,” he said.
But he said such programs are necessary to improve the performance and delivery of services by the department.
He said that aside from the nearly 500,000 public school teachers, the department has started to conduct training programs for a long neglected sector, the non-teaching personnel.
Teachers outraged
Antonio Tinio, chair of the militant Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said they were “outraged that while some DepEd executives help themselves to up to P50 million in unlawful allowances, nearly P700 million in allowances of public school teachers remain unpaid.”
Alvin Peters, president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, wondered what example the DepEd officials were setting for the Filipino youth.
He said the erring DepEd executives should “retake values education with the hope they might regain some of their lost morals.”
Olivia San Pablo, the accounting division chief, said she cannot recall exactly when the practice of collecting EDA started.
Suddenly materialized
“It just suddenly materialized ... There is a circular regarding honorarium, but EDA is different,” San Pablo said, adding that the DepEd is now working out a system of EDA guidelines.
Fe Hidalgo, the former officer in charge of the department and Lapus’ predecessor, recalled having questioned EDA payments when she headed the DepEd.
Hidalgo said agency personnel’s attendance in seminars or training programs “should be considered part of their official duties, not outside the workplace.”
According to the DepEd sources even if the seminars and training activities were held at the DepEd central office in Pasig, the officials still collected the EDA.
A case in point was the Bureau of Elementary Education’s “Search for the Multigrade Teacher Achievers” held from March 25 to 27, which were ordinary working days, at the DepEd headquarters.
Of the P590,000 allocated for the project, a total of P64,500 was spent on “EDA for management and support staff,” according to documents obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
The EDA funding was even bigger than the budget for cash awards for the top teacher achiever and eight regional winners (P54,000), trophies and plaques for 37 contest winners and finalists (P43,100), and per diem of the 14 finalists (P46,400).
Paid no-show
The BEE project, an initiative of BEE director Yolanda Quijano, was approved by Sangil, education undersecretary Vilma Labrador and the budget division chief, Armando Ruiz.
DepEd sources said some officials collected EDA even if they did not personally show up at the seminar-workshop.
“They still got EDA for simply initiating or being in charge of the activity,” the sources said.
The sources did not name names, noting that the “COA people know who we’re referring to.”
COA officer-in-charge Elenita Abesamis declined to be interviewed for this story.
Even ordinary DepEd employees are afflicted with the EDA “virus,” according to a department section head, citing as an example “a casual employee here, with a P6,000 basic monthly pay, made a total of P72,000 in just three weeks by serving as secretariat staff of three activities.”
But a DepEd official who requested anonymity said there was nothing illegal in collecting EDA, citing department orders issued by Lapus himself.
He cited Memorandum 61 on the holding of the PPEP for non-teaching personnel, and Memorandum 70 covering a financial management system seminar-workshop.
|
