SC discloses special funds, audit reports

MANILA, Philippines – Following the dismissal of chief justice Renato Corona, the Supreme Court has decided to give the public access to reports on its special funds as well as Commission on Audit (COA) reports on the judiciary.

The SC started to publish audit reports by COA on its website on June 8. Other reports that have been posted include financial reports on the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), Special Allowances for Judges (SAJ) and the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF).

The COA annually audits the budgets of the Supreme Court, along with other branches and agencies of government, and posts its reports on its website.

However, Corona asked COA not to post its 2009 report on SC. In the said report, the COA gave a “qualified” opinion on the financial statements of the high court, which meant that “certain material transactions and/or accounts have been found to be improper, are questionable or are requiring more solid justifications and therefore have not been passed in audit.”

Then in its 2010 report, COA gave an “adverse” opinion on the court’s finances, specifically the cash held by its collecting officers. An adverse opinion “puts to question the entire financial operation of subject entity and demonstrates past and/or present management’s inability to resolve previously disallowed transactions.”

Corona’s “failure” and “refusal” to account for the use of the SAJ and JDF, meanwhile, was one of the charges in the impeachment complaint against him.

The use of the JDF fund, which is sourced from various legal fees, was also the main contention of the impeachment complaint against another former chief justice, Hilario Davide, in 2003. Eighty percent of the JDF was supposed to cover the cost of living allowances of employees then while 20% was supposed to be used for the improvement of the courts. But employees alleged that Davide did not follow this standard allocation and instead used the JDF to build SC cottages in Baguio and to purchase expensive items for the SC.

The SAJ, meanwhile, is taken from “increases in current fees and new fees which pay be imposed by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.” The SAJ fund is the source of the allowances of judges are justices, which are non-taxable and are equivalent to their salaries.

In December 2010, Newsbreak reported that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad issued a memo to the Supreme Court reminding the court that it has “not complied with the submission of the required accountability reports especially where the status of the SAJ and JDF is concerned.”

The financial reports showed that the SC, the Court of Appeals, the Sandiganbayan and the Court of Tax Appeals had a total of P216 million in collections in the JDF fund in the first quarter of 2012, while they had P253 million in SAJ collections.

Acting chief Justice Antonio Carpio said on June 11 that the financial reports were posted on the SC website to ensure transparency and accountability in the courts. – Rappler.com