All talk, no remit?

Nosy Tarsee’s riddle: Guess which agency head, who never says no to a camera or a microphone and who took over his post in 2025, is about to learn that fixing the mess he inherited is harder than making the evening news?

Because the Commission on Audit has released its annual audit report, which noted that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority handles its payroll in ways that leave many things wrong, our little bird says the chief may need to spend less time before the cameras and more time at his desk.

State auditors found that the agency had an unremitted balance of P57.23 million, which came from Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) contributions and loan payments that were withheld from employees but not fully passed on.

The amount reportedly piled up because the payroll records of the agency did not match the posting records of the GSIS, and nobody seems to have settled the difference.

The auditors said the errors included unmatched employee contributions, incomplete or inconsistent premium details, and variances in recorded loan balances. What makes it worse is that some of these gaps were raised in earlier years, yet they remain unvalidated and unadjusted, as if the problem would go away if no one looked at it.

Because of this, the agency must still verify the figures with the GSIS before the remittances can be fully confirmed and posted, according to the report. Meanwhile, the employees may be the ones who pay the price, since the audit noted that the problem affects the accuracy of the “Due to GSIS” account, which in turn touches the insurance, loan privileges, and retirement benefits that workers have earned through years of service.

That is not all, because in a separate finding, the auditors said the agency has yet to resolve remittance issues with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation amounting to P11.1 million. So while workers wait for their records to be corrected, they may also wonder whether their health coverage is safe.

Our source, who has seen how the chief works, says the man is at his best when there is a crowd to talk to, a road to inspect, or a traffic jam to blame on someone else. But no press conference, however long, can fix a payroll ledger, and no photo opportunity can close a P57.23-million gap that was left open while others were busy being popular.

If he cares as much about the paycheck of the ordinary employee as he does about the headline of the day, we expect him to act fast. If not, the next audit report may be just as unkind.