Flag Disbursement

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Sunday vowed to look into the flagged disbursement of nearly P816 million in Department of Justice (DOJ) funds during the only full-year fiscal term of his predecessor, Vitaliano Aguirre II, in 2017.

In the meantime, Guevarra said the DOJ would conform to the suggestions of the Commission on Audit (COA), which likewise hailed the “undocumented exchange” of some P621 million of the division’s assets.

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Inward test

This early, he said the back officers of the DOJ had officially “guarante” him that every one of the assets appropriate to the division by the national government a year ago had all been represent.

“In any case, I will investigate these issues further,” Guevarra said in an instant message to the Inquirer.

Inquired as to whether he would ask for Aguirre to clarify, he stated: “[There’s] no need. We’ll deal with it inside.”

Aguirre, who quit in April after a progression of disputable choices, including clearing Cebu tranquilize suspect Peter Lim and admitted street pharmacist Kerwin Espinosa, denied inclusion in the finance exchanges addressed by the COA, saying they were “all underneath” his “level as secretary of equity.”

Guevarra had before proclaim that it was his own central goal to bring back the “noble and respectable picture” of the equity division and to “make it a foundation, and not an insignificant column, of our equity framework” by presenting institutional changes.

“The (DOJ) building continues as before, however it’s some way or another consumed inside; it looks strong yet its basic respectability is suspect both truly and figuratively,” he said in a discourse to DOJ workers.

In its yearly review of the DOJ’s money relate exchanges in 2017, the COA found that about P33.5 million in DOJ reserves haS keep in financial balances without the best possible approval.

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No support

In any case, Aguirre, in an announcement on Saturday, said he had “no support at all in the exchanges [mentioned in] the yearly review report discharged by the Commission on Audit.”

“These exchanges included tasks between the Personnel Division and the Accounting Division. They are all beneath my level as secretary of equity,” he said.

“In the assignment of capacities, there is an aide secretary and undersecretary for fund.

Unless the law requires coordinate activity of the secretary of equity, every single money

relate exchange are deal with by these authorities,” he said.

Aguirre censured investigates certain news locales that appeared to overplay the issue,

saying the COA report simply required accommodation of supporting records.

“As indicated by the DOJ Financial Service, this isn’t an instance of finish nonattendance of reports

or supporting archives. At the point when these [journal passage vouchers] were drawn, there

were supporting reports joined thereto, particularly the payment vouchers and the relating

finance warrant registers,” he said.

“It creates the impression that the COA requires the accommodation of the . . . finance enroll.

This archive is accessible and submitted to the Land Bank of the Philippines as the reason

for attributing of the sums to authorities and workers,” he included.

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