The Commission on Audit. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Members and staff of Congress’ powerful Commission on Appointments (CA) enjoyed a bounty of allowances in 2012, including P204 million in extra benefits erroneously classified as maintenance and operating expenses in official records, according to a Commission on Audit (COA) report.
The P204.41 million in bonuses tucked under the “other maintenance and operation expenses” (OMOE) category was over and above the regular salaries and numerous allowances that commission members and personnel receive, which are classified under personal services and which amounted to P159.45 million in 2012.
Altogether, the P363.86 million in salaries and benefits that commission personnel received in 2012 made up the bulk of the commission’s P455.1 million in expenses for 2012.
The COA report covered the Commission on Appointments of the 15th Congress, which was headed by then Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.
The bicameral commission approves the President’s appointment of heads of executive agencies, ambassadors and other public officials. It consists of the Senate President as ex-officio chair, and 12 senators and 12 members of the House of Representatives.
The CA proper has 12 staff members, while the CA secretariat has 105.
Membership in the commission is a coveted post for members of Congress because it comes with much power and influence.
The audit agency said most of the CA’s operating expenses were incorrectly classified under the OMOE, which is supposed to include only those expenses that cannot be considered under the regular expenses categories.
“OMOE are normally infrequent types of government expenditures and are rarely incurred in government financial transactions,” it noted.
In going over the CA’s P236.14 million OMOE, the COA found that P204.41 million in expenses did not belong to the category as these were essentially allowances and bonuses. These should have been taxed but weren’t because they were not correctly classified, the COA said.
The P204 million under the OMOE consisted of the CA members’ maintenance and other operating expenses (P71.59 million); additional grocery expenses and grocery bonus (P21.65 million); longevity and incentive benefits and the chairman’s incentive bonus (P15.69 million); Yuletide package (P14.36 million); financial relief assistance, chairman’s calamity assistance and inflationary calamity assistance (P13.52 million); reimbursable travelling expenses, transportation (P13.26 million); midyear economic assistance and yearend performance incentive (P12.84 million); cost-of-living allowance (P9.265 million); efficiency benefits (P9.095 million); education allowance (P8.45 million); milestone, anniversary bonus (P5.81 million); rice subsidy allowance (P4.63 million); food subsidy and staple food assistance (P4.216 million); and salary (P10.349 million).
The COA said these expenses, except for the grocery and food expenses, were essentially benefits granted to the CA members and should be classified as personal services, and therefore subject to withholding tax.
It said the grocery and food expenses could be charged to representation expenses if the money was spent for official entertainment, public relations, meetings, seminars or conferences.