(Eagle News) — Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre III denied he had a hand in the payroll transactions red-flagged recently by the Commission on Audit.
In a statement on Saturday, May 26, Aguirre said “these transactions involved operations between the Personnel Division and the Accounting Division. They are all below my level as Secretary of Justice.”
“I have no participation whatsoever in the transactions subject matter of the Annual Audit Report released by the Commission on Audit (COA),” Aguirre said, referring to what the COA said was the “undocumented” transfer of P621 million worth of disbursed payroll funds.
According to Aguirre, “it is worth highlighting that the financial transactions in the (DOJ) are handled primarily by the Financial Service, from the Budget and Accounting Divisions and under their Director IV.”
“In the delegation of functions,” he said “there is an Assistant Secretary and Undersecretary for Finance.”
“Unless the law requires direct action of the Secretary of Justice, all financial transactions are taken care of by these officials,” he said.
In any case, Aguirre said what the COA requires, contrary to what some media sites have reported, “the submission of the document entitled Payroll Register.”
He said this was “available and submitted to the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) as the basis for crediting of the amounts to officials and employees.”
“According to the DOJ Financial Service, this is not a case of complete absence of documents or supporting documents. When these JEVs (journal entry vouchers) were drawn, there were supporting documents attached thereto, specifically the Disbursement Vouchers and the corresponding Payroll Warrant Registers,” he said.
