THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has been relieved of obligation to pay the claim of 10 security guards of the Pangasinan State University (PSU) for unpaid overtime duty more than 20 years ago totaling P678,737.85.
The Commission on Audit held that it is the PSU that should pay the security officers since it was the one that benefitted from the services rendered.
“Since the claimants are employees of the PSU and it was the PSU that benefitted from their overtime services, the PSU alone is liable to pay for such services. In fact, it was the PSU which issued the special orders authorizing the conversion of the claimants’ OT pay to leave credits,” the COA en banc pointed out.
Claimant security guards Rodolfo Lopez, Mariano Payomo, Domingo Parayano, Domingo Bruan, Isidro Cruz, Emilio Quinto, Sixto Valencerina, Antonio Sison, Joehannes Arenas, and Roger Beltran said the unpaid work hours were for 2000 to 2003.
Of the group, Parayno and Sison have already passed away without seeing the fruit of their labor. The COA said their heirs will get their share of the amount based on the number of duty hours.
Records showed former PSU president Rodolfo Asanion, by authority of the Board of Regents, issued special orders granting leave credits in lieu of cash payments to the 10 security guards for reporting on overtime duty.
However, the OT payments were not released so that when Lopez retired in 2015, he wrote to then-PSU president Dexter Buted to authorize the release of payment of the sum due him totaling P60,977. The other nine claimants later joined his petition.
However, the PSU vice president for administration said the conversion of OT pay to leave credits had no valid legal basis even if the school was willing enough. The same university official requested the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to allow the school to use funds from its current year budget.
The DBM instead instructed the PSU to advise the security guards to file their claim with the COA.
“This Commission agrees with the DBM that the claimants’ OT services totaling to P678,737.85 …should be charged against the appropriations of the PSU,” the Commission said.
