MANILA, Philippines — Former Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II denied yesterday any involvement in the allegedly irregular transfer of P621 million of unused funds to its automated teller machine payroll account based on a Commission on Audit (COA) report.
The COA disclosed on Thursday the DOJ transferred a total of P621,646,352.48 from its modified disbursement system (MDS) regular account with Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to its ATM current payroll account with the same bank in 2017 instead of reverting the money to the national treasury in accordance with the rules.
At the time, Aguirre was still the DOJ secretary but he explained that the financial transactions of the department are handled by the financial service of the budget and accounting divisions. The DOJ also has 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 explained.
Aguirre said he did not have any participation in the transactions mentioned in COA’s Annual Audit Report because “no signature was ever required” of him for these.
“These transactions did not reach the knowledge of the undersigned. These transactions involved operations between the personnel division and the accounting division. They are all below my level as secretary of justice,” he added in his statement.