A Commission on Audit ruling that declared final and executory the disallowance of more than P6 million in hazard and longevity pays given to officials and employees of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System has left a question on who will refund the full amount of the unauthorized disbursements to government.
This possible legal controversy surfaced as it turned out that among the MWSS officials blamed for the unauthorized release of payment was the same person who had been cleared in 2017 by the Supreme Court of another case relating to the distribution of unauthorized allowances and bonuses to the water firm’s employees in year 2000.
In the decided SC case, lawyer Darlina Uy, head of the MWSS legal department, and several other MWSS executives were ordered by the Commission on Audit-Commission Proper (COA-CP) to return over P8 million in disallowed disbursements.
On the other hand, in the recent COA-CP ruling released late last year, the panel junked a Petition for Review filed by Uy and lawyer Anabella S. Altuna in connection with the affirmation of the Notice of Disallowance (ND) on the payment of hazard and longevity pays distributed to MWSS employes in 2013, amounting to P1,120,917.28 and P5,166,462.69, respectively.
Composed of Chairman Michael Aguinaldo and Commissioner Rolando Pondoc, the COA panel dismissed the appeal “for being filed out of time”.
The COA-CP also declared as final and executory the ND on the allegedly unauthorized distribution of the hazard and longevity pays.
The 2021 COA decision did not state who will return the disallowed amount although it is not unusual for the audit agency to demand the refund of ND from those who received the money.
But if the 2017 SC ruling concerning Uy’s petition is to be considered, neither the MWSS executives nor the recipients of the unauthorized payments may be held liable for the refund.
In the 2017 decision written by now retired Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, the SC rejected the COA-CP decision to demand refund of disallowed disbursements. The court pointed out that there was no proof that the concerned COA executives “were the approving officers contemplated by law to be personally liable to refund the illegal disbursements.”
“Under the circumstances, the petitioners in G.R. No. 220727, albeit officials of the MWSS, were not members of the Board of Trustees and, as such, could not be held personally liable for the disallowed benefits by virtue of their having had no part in the approval of the disallowed benefits,” the SC ruling stated.
The High Court said it was the BOT, through board resolution, that “issued the authority granting the benefits and allowances to the employees.” “In turn, the recipients of the benefits - officials and employees alike - were not liable to refund the amounts received for having acted in good faith due to their honest belief that the grant of the benefits had legal basis,” the decision read.