COA partly upholds decisions disallowing Legazpi aid, wage hike

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has partly affirmed two decisions from its regional office in the Bicol Region that disallowed the Legazpi City government’s distribution of aid to senior citizens and tricycle drivers, along with salary increases for government employees.

In two separate decisions both dated July 31, COA Chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba and Commissioners Roland Pondoc and Mario Lipana partly approved the Regional Office No. V’s decision to order former Albay governor Noel Rosal; his wife, incumbent Legazpi City mayor Geraldine Rosal; and other city officials and employees to return over P60 million worth of government funds.

Decision No. 2024-009 tackled incentives for employees worth P38.09 million, a notice of disallowance for which was issued on May 2, 2023.  This incentive, worth an employee’s one-month salary, and P30,000 was approved last December 21, 2022, despite supposedly being illegal.

Decision No. 2024-010, meanwhile, delves into a February 2024 Appropriation Ordinance where P28.56 million worth of cash advances were granted to Special Disbursing Officers as financial aid to seniors and tricycle drivers.

The P15.72 million and P8.376 million set aside for senior citizens and the P4.460 million for tricycle drivers were released from March 24 to April 2024 — or at least two months before the 2022 national and midterm elections.

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For Decision No. 2024-009, the original notice of disallowance was revised by only having City Treasurer Carlita de Guzman return the amount of benefits that were disbursed to her.  For the other decision, COA said that only former governor Rosal and Executive Assistant IV would be the officials asked to return the funds.

“The other persons held liable under the ND (notice of disallowance), former Mayor Rosal and Executive Assistant (Santiago) Baltazar, who approved the payment of FA should remain liable therefor. Their approval of the payment of the FA, when former Mayor Rosal was a candidate for governor of the Province of Albay, is clearly directly related to the basis of disallowance,” the COA ruling said.

“Patent disregard for laws and administrative issuances/regulations amount to gross negligence, which makes the erring public officials liable for the return of the amount disallowed by reason thereof—and this remain true even if the disallowed expenditures were not for a dishonest purpose,” the ruling stressed.

In February 2023, the Legazpi City ordinance authorizing these benefits was declared invalid by the provincial government, citing that the local government unit supposedly lacked the authority to grant such benefits under the Salary Standardization Law.

The city government contested this ruling.