The top officials of the state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines is now under fire after the Commission on Audit (COA) disallowed the almost P300 million worth of bonuses for being “irregular and excessive,” under the agency’s rules.
COA released a notice of disallowance sent to DBP, as they noted that the bonuses approved by the Governance Commission on GOCCs (GCG) and implemented by DBP “were far beyond the cap that may be provided” by a government-owned or -controlled corporation under the very same rules of the GCG—an agency created under the Aquino administration to oversee the operations of various state-owned firms.
COA audit team leader Arturo dela Cruz signed the COA report together with supervising auditor Emma Noises and then sent the report to DBP president and CEO Gil Buenaventura last month. In a news report by Inquirer, they sought the side of the DBP management on the issue and e-mailed statement disputing the findings of the agency.
Based upon the COA’s notice of disallowance, a total of 2,168 DBP officials of various ranks received P298.4 million in bonuses for the year 2014. The same notice pointed out, however, that the GCG’s own rules mandate a cap of 2.5 times the monthly salary of the top 10 percent of a GOCC’s officials, 1.5 times for the next 25 percent and double the monthly wage of the remaining 65 percent of employees.
This news article failed to state that DBP’s Management sought was able to get approval from GCG of up to 12 times their basic pay as Performance Bonus, despite GCG’s rule that only up to 2.5 times is allowed — as a maximum