P132,000 bonus recipients losing sleep

COA rules vs Tayabas generosity

TAYABAS CITY—Three months after local government employees here received a P132,000 bonus each, the prospect of returning the amount to government coffers is now causing the workers sleepless nights.

“Thinking that the amount was really a generous bonus, most of it had already been spent,” said an employee. He requested that he not be identified as city workers were on orders not to talk to media.

“With the prospect of returning it through salary deductions, what will be left of my monthly salary? My wife is now finding it hard to sleep.”

“We are under strict orders by local officials not to speak to the media,” a female employee said.

Discrepancy

The employees said that if they would be forced to return the bonuses given to them, they will only return P82,000.

“Because that’s the amount that we actually received,” said the worker.

Last February, 151 permanent city employees each signed vouchers listing the amount of P132,000 due them under the so-called “Collective Negotiation Agreement” (CNA) incentive.

The fund purportedly came from the 50 percent savings of the local government’s MOOE (maintenance and other operating expenses).

However, most employees said they only received P82,000 even if the payroll slip that they signed showed they got P132,000.

Five city councilors—Wenda de Torres, Sergio Caagbay, Ernida Reynoso, Catalino Cabriga and Nicodemus Abesamis—had asked the Commission on Audit to investigate the legality of the generous incentives authorized by Tayabas Mayor Faustino Silang.

The COA, through its Notice of Disallowances dated March 6, 2009, cited several legal grounds that nullified the incentives.

Return the money

It ordered Silang and Tayabas City accountant Carina Jalbuena to direct all recipients of the bonuses to deal with the disallowance and pay back the money to government.

Failure to do so, the COA said, will compel the audit agency to enforce sanctions.

On April 1, the five councilors also charged Silang and nine other local government officials with grave abuse of authority and other violations at the Ombudsman for Luzon.

Two local finance officials are now distancing themselves from the fund mess.

Tayabas City treasurer Reynaldo Antiola and Jalbuena, in two separate affidavits obtained by the Inquirer, claimed that they were only pressured and forced to sign the documents releasing P19 million for the incentives.

Jalbuena said she issued her affidavit in her “sincere attempt to mitigate” her involvement or participation in the transaction.

Cannot be reached

Antiola said he executed the affidavit to “relieve myself of liability” as an accountable officer of the local government “for what I believed was an illegal or improper use or application of government funds.”

He also confessed that he only received P82,000, “which I learned was in accordance with the instruction given by City Mayor Faustino Silang.”

Antiola said he was wiling to return the P82,000.

Several times, the Inquirer called Silang through his mobile phone to get his side but the calls were not entertained and sometimes cut by busy tones.

In 2008, Tayabas government workers also received a similar bonus amounting to P59,000 each, which prompted the office of the provincial auditor to issue a notice of suspension of payment and ask the local government to justify the disbursement.–Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Philippine Daily Inquirer