SC clears anew gov’t officials who signed approved contracts

Public officials should not be held liable for signing contracts that have been approved by bids and awards committees (BACs), the Supreme Court has ruled for a third time.

The Supreme Court has reiterated this jurisprudence in absolving former Nueva Ecija Gov. Tomas Joson III in the allegedly irregular construction in 2004 of a P155-million hotel by the provincial government.

In rendering a unanimous decision, the 15-member tribunal voided the notice of disallowance issued by the Commission on Audit (COA) that demanded Joson return the public funds used to build the Nueva Ecija Friendship Hotel in Palayan City.

Ineligible contractor

The 60-room hotel, now known as the Sierra Madre Suites, was constructed to provide affordable accommodation to local government officials conducting trainings and seminars in Nueva Ecija.

COA auditors had questioned the construction of the hotel after discovering that the contractor, AVT Construction, had failed to comply with the eligibility requirements for government suppliers as spelled out in Republic Act No. 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

Spurned twice by the COA, Joson sought the tribunal’s intervention as he accused the state auditors of committing grave abuse of discretion in a petition for certiorari he filed in 2016.

As the high court declared in its two previous rulings—Arias vs Sandiganbayan (1989) and Ramon Albert vs Celso Gangan (2001)—a government official who signed public documents that passed through the required competitive public bidding “does not automatically become a conspirator in a crime which transpired at a stage where he had no participation.”

The court also noted that the COA released two separate resolutions on Jan. 29, 2015, and Jan. 19, 2016, that both dismissed Joson’s appeal to be excluded from the public officials covered by its notice of disallowance, although the hotel was already fully operational.

BAC responsible

The justices said state auditors should not fault Joson if he was not aware, as the head of a procuring agency, that the project contractor had failed to satisfy the eligibility requirements for bidders for government contracts.

They agreed with the former governor’s argument that he should not be held liable since members of the BAC and its technical working group were the ones responsible in determining the capacity of AVT to build the multimillion-peso project.

“[The] COA merely presumed (Joson’s) foreknowledge of the infirmity of the contract on the latter’s signature,” the tribunal ruled.

“[M]ere signature does not result [in] a liability of the official involved without any showing of irregularity on the document’s face such that a detailed examination would be warranted,” it said.