MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Education has accumulated almost half-a-billion pesos in unliquidated cash advances for travel, special purpose and other time-bound undertakings over the past three years, according to a 2007 report by the Commission on Audit.

The COA said that of the P405.8 million in unliquidated cash advances, P179.4 million was from the office of the department secretary and staff bureaus.

“We recommend that demand letters be sent to employees with outstanding cash advances and require them to immediately settle the amounts granted,” the COA said.

It said the DepEd’s accounting unit should prepare subsidiary ledgers for cash advances and regularly reconcile the accounts and adjust misclassified or erroneously recorded accounts.

The COA also recommended that only those liquidations with complete supporting documents should be recorded.

The state audit agency noted that some of the DepEd’s liquidation reports were either inaccurate, unreliable, over- or understated, misclassified or simply erroneous.

The DepEd’s Bureau of Secondary Education (BSE), which has P1.59 million in unliquidated cash, charged advances beyond the allowable P15,000 limit, the COA said.

The Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE) has P3.1 million in unliquidated cash with incomplete documents.

The DepEd’s Central Mindanao regional office has P16.7 million worth of undocumented cash advances and another P10.6 million lacked the proper records.

Next to the Office of the Secretary, the Eastern Mindanao regional office has the biggest unliquidated cash advances made to officers and employees at P82.7 million.

The Central Mindanao regional office has P56.2 million worth of unliquidated cash advances, while Region 4-A or Calabarzon (Calamba, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) has P24 million. Nikko Dizon