Ex-officer gets one-year jail term for unaccounted cash advance

Warning to all government employees: Failure to render an accounting of cash advances within two months can mean a one-year jail term.

This was the fate of Rosulo Lopez Manlangit, former director of the Mt. Pinatubo Commission (MPC), who failed to account the P176,300 he received as "cash advance" for the sixth anniversary of MPC before he left the agency in December 1998.

Manlangit was meted a one-year jail term by the fourth division of the Sandiganbayan yesterday after he was found "guilty" of failing to "render a true, correct and complete account" of funds he received when he was still officer-in-charge of MPC’s information, education and communication department.

In an 11-page decision penned by Justice Rodolfo Palattao and concurred in by Justices Gregory Ong and Ma. Cristina Cortez-Estrada, the anti-graft court reiterated Manlangit was obliged under the law to make an accounting even "without the necessity of a demand" from the Commission on Audit.

"It should be emphasized that what the law penalizes is the failure to render account within the period prescribed," the magistrates emphasized, reminding the erring public servant that he was "required to settle all his accountabilities prior to his separation from the service" in Dec. 1998.

"As it appears, he was constrained to submit his liquidation after a criminal complaint was lodged against him," the trial court said.

The complaint was filed by MPC executive director Artaserxes Sampang in April 2000 at the Office of the Ombudsman, which subsequently made the indictment.

"It suffices that there is a law or regulation (COA circular 90-331) requiring the public officer to render account and he failed to do so for a period of two months. We find no sufficient reason to depart from that ruling," the jurists stressed.

Manlangit’s belated justification of his actions and a letter from DBM Undersecretary Manuel Relampagos seeking the withdrawal of the case from the anti-graft court didn’t help either.