Comelec’s unsettled disbursements down to P600,000, says Brillantes

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Friday that it has an estimated P600,000 left of unliquidated disbursements by the end of 2012, down from the P1.3 billion reported by the Commission on Audit (COA) recently.

“As far as I know we have settled it already; only P600,000 is left at the end of 2012,” Brillantes said Friday after a published COA report showed that Comelec has an unsettled amount of P1.3 billion from cash advances by the end of 2011.

He said that the P600,000 was being requested to be written off because it was from accounts that are already around 20 years old and could no longer be liquidated. It came from cash advances to the military, the Department of Education, and other government agencies, Brillantes said.

“After 20 years the records have been lost so we could no longer determine who is liable, that is why we are requesting that it be written off,” he said.

The COA report cited the Comelec for being able to reduce the unliquidated amount from P4.4 billion by end of 2010 to just P1.3 billion in 2011.

Brillantes said that two of the biggest unliquidated amounts, P48 million and P46 million, came from two officials who have been previously sacked and are now facing criminal charges.