276775 Teresita P. De Guzman, et al. Vs. Commission on Audit — Official PDF

Decision 14 G.R. No. 276775 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the amounts fixed thereunder shall be the ceiling in the disbursements; Clearly, the authority of a government-owned and controlled corporation’s board of directors to appropriate amounts for Extraordinary and Miscellaneous Expenses must emanate from said corporation’s respective charter. In the event that there is no such authority in its corporate charter, the governing board may refer to the General Appropriations Act. In this connection, there is nothing in Presidential Decree No. 198, as amended, the corporate charter of Pagsanjan Water District, that authorizes the Board thereof to grant the Extraordinary and Miscellaneous Expenses in favor of its General Manager. Considering this, this Court now refers to the General Appropriations Act.” The application of the GAA to the EMEs of GOCCs without charteral” authority to grant such benefits is not new. We invoked the same principle in Philippine Health Insurance Corporation v. Commission on Audit,” regarding EMEs granted by PhilHealth to its directors; in Power Sector Assets and Liabilities. Management Corporation v. Commission on Audit,” regarding business development expenses incurred by board members, committee members, and managers of Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation that were charged to its EME account; and in National Transmission Corporation v. Commission on Audit,” regarding EMEs paid to TransCo officials. The same principle was also applied in Espinas v. Commission-on Audit,”® involving EMEs paid to officials of the Local Water Utilities Administration, which, like the BWD, is a creature of Presidential Decree No. 198. In that case, We upheld the applicability of COA Circular 2006-01 to GOCCs: ... Item Il of CoA Circular No. 2006-01, captioned as “Scope and Coverage,” explicitly states that “[t]his circular shall be applicable to all GOCCs, GFls and their subsidiaries” and shall cover their “extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses and other similar expenses.” Item I of CoA Circular No. 2006-01, captioned as “Rationale,” also mentions the CoA’s declared policy to “prescribe rules and regulations specifically for government ‘corporations to regulate the incurrence of these expenditures and ensure the prevention and disallowance of irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable expenditures or uses of government funds” considering that “{g]overning boards of [GOCCs/GFIs] are invariably empowered to appropriate through resolutions such amounts as they deem appropriate for extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses”...”7 1 Id. at 503-504. 72 “Tn accordance with a charter. WEHD.com, * Charteral. World English Historical Dictionary, available A NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES 294 (1893). 7% 839 Phil. 573, 583-595 (2018) [Per J. Jardeleza, En Banc]. ™ 918-A Phil. 571, 583-585 (2021) [Per J. Inting, Ea Banc]. 7 889 Phil. 1170, 1180-1181 (2020) {Per J. Delos Santos, En Banc]. 7 731 Phil. 67 (2014) [Per J. Perlas-Bernabe, En Bunz]. 7 Id. at 79-80. VW)