Aide to liquidate Rama’s P.5M cash advances

CEBU, Philippines - A close of aide of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has promised to liquidate the latter’s cash advances amounting to over half million pesos.

Alvin Santillana, operations officer of the City Disaster-Risk Reduction and Management Office, is hoping to finish liquidating the P557,150 unliquidated cash advance by next week. He said he is still collating all the official receipts to support the liquidation.

The amount was spent by Santillana together with several city hall employees and civilian volunteers during the relief operations in Compostela Valley last December. The city government sent a team to help typhoon victims in the province. The money was spent for the food, drugs and medicines for the typhoon victims.

According to Santillana, it was Rama who made the cash advances for him because he was not allowed to do it. Government rules only allow bonded employee to make the cash advance.

“Tingali mahuman na nako paghatag ang kwentada sa among nagasto ingon man ang mga resibo kay para ma-clear na tawon ang mayor sa unliquidated cash advance (I hope I can finish the liquidation so that the mayor will be cleared of his unliquidated cash advances),” Santillana said.

The accounting section announced that aside from the mayor, some City Hall officials and personnel have an accumulated unliquidated cash advances amounting to more than P12 million.

Among them are Philip Zafra, the chief of staff of the Office of the Mayor, (P4.5 million); Administrative Assistant Henry Tumalabcad, (P2 million), both amount were taken from the Intelligence Fund, and Administrative Assistant Carlos “Charlie” Reyes, (P3.9 million) and Virgilio Salaum, (P1 million) taken from trust fund.

Although Zafra claimed that he and Tumalabcad have already submitted their liquidation before the Commission on Audit (COA) in Manila. Their names however will remain in the list of officials having unliquidated cash advances until their liquidation papers are approved.

The accounting department has already withheld the salary of Reyes since January because of his failure to liquidate the P3,993,200 cash advances granted to him in July and August 2012. —/FPL (FREEMAN)