Friday, August 17, 2007 MCIAA ‘acted as business firm’
MACTAN-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) General Manager Danilo Augusto Francia yesterday said they acted as a corporation and business enterprise in giving bonuses and benefits that the Commission on Audit (COA) considered unauthorized.
The Cebu Port Authority (CPA), on the other hand, said COA rules and regulations and the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 5 order must be reconciled to avoid confusion, said Deputy General Manager Dennis Villamor.
Francia said that while COA officials are doing their job, they at the MCIAA are also working “in accordance with the powers vested” on them by the MCIAA Charter.
As a government corporation functioning as business enterprise, Francia said MCIAA is supposed to hire business and marketing experts. But, he said, no one of high-caliber would take a position with the MCIAA with low compensation.
This is the reason, according to him, that bonuses and year-end benefits are offered to incumbent officials and employees.
Some of these benefits are already mandated by other laws. Both officials and employees received the same amount.
Francia said the benefits disallowed by COA were given “in good faith” and as reward for hard work in improving airport services.
In its report for 2006, COA said that the P13.65 million MCIAA distributed as cash dividends to employees and officials was without legal basis.
Francia said they have been clamoring for the amendment of the MCIAA charter so proposed provisions can be inserted that are patterned after “rules and regulations of a business enterprise” and not after a government service-oriented office.
In a service-oriented office, the government will spend funds without expecting profits. But, he said, a government corporation operates on its own without the support from the National Government.
“Of all the government corporations, MCIAA is one of the biggest earners, and half of our income goes to the National Government despite the fact that the National Government is not giving operational funds to MCIAA,” Francia said.
At the CPA, Deputy Manager Dennis Villamor reacted yesterday to COA’s comment that the CPA is paying millions of pesos in benefits to officials and employees without legal basis.
Villamor said that while they respect COA’s interpretation of the law, they are also obliged to obey a court order.
“Which would prevail- the order of the court or the COA findings that the payment of other benefits is without basis? The two must be reconciled,” Villamor said.
Aside from the order of the court, Villamor said all the benefits given to officials and employees were also approved by the Cebu Port Commission, the CPA’s governing body.
“The members of the Board are guided properly by the CPA Charter and they will not act on matters without legal basis,” Villamor said.
He said the Board even asks for legal opinions from the CPA legal department and the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) before it makes major decisions.
CPA General Manager Angelo Verdan said they are confident that COA will reverse it findings because the court order alone is a legal basis in releasing the benefits.
Verdan said that an auditor may have inadvertently erred in interpreting the law, so they can ask for reconsideration or appeal even up to the Supreme Court. (EOB)
