CoA audit flags unliquidated payroll advances of SC

The annual audit report of the Commission on Audit (CoA) for 2025 identified compliance issues when it came to the Supreme Court’s liquidation of P417.25-million in cash advances (CAs) distributed to Supreme Court justices and officials of the court.

Aside from payroll advances, the report also indicated that they were handed to special disbursing officers (SDO) for special purpose and time-bound undertakings and advances for officers and employees for local and foreign travels.

It noted that the unliquidated documents covered a total of 706 cash advances coming from 2025, with some going as far back as 12 years ago.

State auditors said that their verification of the unliquidated amounts found that delays were mainly attributed to the non-submission and late-submission of liquidation reports on the part of the accountable officers.

It was also indicated that a portion of the deficiencies were due to the delays in the processing, verification, and recording of liquidations from the Finance Division and Accounting Division of the high court.

A thorough analysis from CoA also found that 463 CAs amounting to P276.35-million were due to the non-submission of two special disbursing officers, a majority of which were granted in 2023 and 2024.

One of the officers reportedly wrote a letter to the auditing agency indicating that the reason for their inability to liquidate the advances was because of their medical condition and heavy workload, asking for a ninety day extension to complete the liquidation.

CoA, however, pointed out that some of its findings had been found even before the onset of the medical condition yet still remained unliquidated. The deficiencies were labeled as a “repeat finding.”

The other SDO had stated that the issues in her operations were because of delays of the liquidation reports of different offices, noting that some offices had gone as far as submitting incomplete documentation to push for additional cash advances.

“Based on the foregoing explanations, our analysis of the cash advance transactions of the two SDOs, confirm numerous instances of successive or overlapping cash advances granted without prior liquidation of earlier advances,” CoA said in response to the explanations.

“These cash advances were released on a recurring and continuous basis, with new grants made despite outstanding balances from previous transactions,” it added.

CoA further stated that the existence of such liquidation issues shows a systemic weakness to enforce liquidation policies, which include the granting of additional CAs, and the timely submission of liquidation reports.

It was indicated in the report that the Supreme Court had undertaken several measures to resolve the issues and had already completed the liquidation of P154-million in cash advances as of 13 April.