Tetangco wins battle against COA cutters for P1,500 perk
Now it can be told. The discreet Amando Tetangco Jr. has quietly waged a protracted battle with PNoy favorite chairman of the Commission on Audit, the irascible Grace Pulido-Tan, over a P1,500 allowance per meeting that the then Bangko Sentral governor received.
The nearly decade-old battle involved the P1,500 representation and transportation allowance (RATA in bureaucratic-speak) that Tetangco and two other deputy governors received whenever they attended a board meeting of the Philippine International Convention Center, a Bangko Sentral subsidiary.
COA had maintained that the allowance constituted double compensation. The Bangko Sentral insisted they were not, saying that this case was deja vu all over again.
To make a long story short, the country’s highest tribunal had to intervene, deciding in full bench, in favor of Tetangco.
The gods of Padre Faura reminded the COA cutters that the Bangko Sentral vs COA case already had a precedent, a 2010 SC decision on the certiorari petition by former Gov. Gabriel C. Singson on precisely the same issue.
And just to obviate any proPNoy-proDu30 sniping, even Duterte appointee Solicitor-General Jose Calida, surprisingly, went along with the audit brigade, joining holdover administrator Tetangco Michael Aguinaldo in supporting the COA position that the Singson decision did not apply to Tetangco and company.
Both Aguinaldo and Calida are, unfortunately, wrong, said the high tribunal, giving the two gentlemen a refresher course on the finer points of the case’s jurisprudence.
“In any event, the COA contradicted itself when in one breadth, it acknowledged the application of Singson to this case, but in another, it disallowed the grant of RATA to aforenamed petitioners (Tetangco and then deputy governors Armando Suratos and Juan de Zuniga Jr.) for supposed lack of valid authority,” said the ponente, Associate Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier.
At any rate, the Supreme Court pointed out, the questioned RATA received by Tetangco and company in 2010 were well within the parameters established by the General Appropriations Act of 2010, which ranged from P4,000 a month for chiefs of divisions to P11,000 for department secretaries.
A two-term central bank governor, Tetangco, after his retirement in July 2017, has moved on to greener pastures, to the board of SM’s Belle Corp., and even joined the jetset crowd as director of Lucio Tan’s Philippine Airlines.
Pulido-Tan, meanwhile, is safely overseas, being remunerated in almighty dollar as the external auditor of World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization.
Think-tank overcomes COA queens
If you wonder why the grant of P1,500 allowance would have to be elevated to and resolved by the already backlogged justices, wait until you read the beef of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
The government think-tank contracted a private health maintenance organization, PhilamCare Health System, to conduct the annual physical checkup and provide medical insurance coverage for its employees.
Having learned its lesson when it obtained the Malacanang clearance from a deputy executive secretary, only to be post-contract disallowed by Pulido-Tan and her alter-ego Heidi Mendoza, PIDS this time not only have the health and budget secretaries’ prior approvals, the think-tank also secured the proper Office of the President clearance, issued by then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita himself, way back in 2007.
Just to get through COA, PIDS also farmed out the HMO contract to governance poster boy Jose Cuisia Jr.’s company, hoping that the PNoy connections could get past through the COA queens. Still no dice. But even that, COA shot down, saying even just the outsourced annual medical checkup for the 54 PIDS employees amounted to “additional allowance” and constituted disbursement of public funds prohibited by law.
“The annual medical checkup program implemented by PIDS is not an additional insurance,” countered Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, incidentally another PNoy appointee like Pulido-Tan and Mendoza.
“It is an alternative provided by PhilHealth,” the government health insurance agency which at that time had no such program, Leonen said, adding that the HMO agreements with PhilamCare, now controlled by STI chain owner Eusebio Tanco, and other private HMOs do not fall within the ambit of the additional allowance prohibited by COA itself.
Another PNoy appointee to the Supreme Court, Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, could only agree, and voted to roll back the COA disallowance.
Incidentally, for students of public policy and government, do take time to read the spirited discussions of Leonen and Caguioa on the parameters, and origins, of the wide-ranging powers of the so-called Little President of Malacanang.
Heard through the grapevine
Christmas has come early for The Firm. The Supreme Court has increased the fee to be collected by Villaraza and Angangco from the victory of their client, BDO, against the International Copra Export group from P25 million to P41.67 million.
The attorney’s fee represents five percent of the monetary award that is to be collected by the Sy bank from the copra and related companies.