By LITO RULONA
Correspondent
THE Commission on Audit (COA) has sent city hall a notice of disallowance against the use of funds for the expanded Local School Board.
In the three-page document, COA regional director Celso Vocal said it appeared that disbursement transactions on the controverted school board composition and the related honoraria had long been consummated.
Vocal stated this following a July 15, 2015 dispatch by the assistant city secretary Raul Moldez about City Council Resolution no. 12085-2015, requesting COA to look into the expanded composition of the school board. Attached was the copy of a receipt of remuneration of the members vis-a-vis the provisions of the Local Government Code.
He said the issue was whether the additional members of the school board and their corresponding honoraria were valid.
“Nowhere in that provisions or anywhere else in the law can we find any authority of power of the local chief executive to create, expand or add new members of the LSB other than what is enumerated therein. When the law is unequivocal and clear, one should not add or construe any other meaning or intention. One need only apply it as it is, plain and simple,” Vocal said.
He said city hall was plucking provisions from the Constitution to justify its action, and it “is futile as it is misplaced.”
Vocal stated: “It is elementary in constitutional law that Article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution is not self-executory, that is, it needs (an) enabling law which province is within the legislative branch of the government and not in the hands (of the) LGU’s Chief Executive by a mere issuance of an executive order.
“Consequently, the additional (members) of the LSB are deemed void and their compensation illegal. Aside from that is the issue of validity of the (honoraria) of the duly constituted membership of the LSB. This office begs to disagree with the position in finding that the claim of the entire LSB is valid.”
Vocal said Section 101 of RA 7160 is categorical in stating that the co-chairman and members of local school boards are supposed to perform their duties without compensation or remuneration.
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