THE Supreme Court has ruled that mere approval of anomalous contracts does not automatically make government officials liable.
In a decision written by Associate Justice Noel Tijam, the Court said the signatures of local and provincial executives and heads of agencies in procurement contracts that are found to be anomalous are not enough to establish their criminal and administrative liabilities.
“Mere signature [of the head of office or local government unit] in the award of the contract and the contract itself without anything more cannot be considered as a presumption of liability,” the Court en banc decision penned by Associate Justice Noel Tijam declared.
“Liability depends upon the wrong committed and not solely by reason of being the head of a government agency,” the Court said.
The decision stemmed from a Commission on Audit finding against former Nueva Ecija governor Tomas Joson III, for the P155.03-million construction of the Nueva Ecija Friendship Hotel, now named the Sierra Madre Suites.
The CoA issued in 2007 notices on three contracts signed and approved by Joson with A.V.T. Construction for the project and found him liable along with members of the Bids and Awards Committee, the BAC Technical Working Group, the provincial accountant, and the provincial engineer.
Joson had filed a petition for exclusion from liability, arguing that “the determination of whether a prospective bidder is eligible or not is the exclusive responsibility of the BAC and if there is indeed a liability, the members of the BAC should be held liable since they are the persons directly responsible for the transaction.”
However, CoA, in its 2015 decision, denied the petition as it ruled that Joson was liable for the disallowed amount since “he failed to exercise due diligence in the performance of his duty.”
The commission also ruled that “being a signatory in the contracts, Joson is presumed to have prior knowledge that the bidding process was tainted with ineligibility.”
But the Supreme Court disagreed with the CoA.
“The fact that petitioner [Joson] is the head of the procuring entity and the governor of Nueva Ecija does not automatically make him the party ultimately liable for the disallowed amount. He cannot be held liable simply because he was the final approving authority of the transaction in question and that the employees or officers who processed the same were under his supervision,” the tribunal said.
“In the present case, other than the mere signature of the petitioner, no other evidence was presented by the CoA to show that petitioner had actual prior knowledge of the ineligibility of A.V.T. Construction. Nothing appears on record that would prompt petitioner to thoroughly review and go over every document submitted by A.V.T. Construction, considering that they were already evaluated and scrutinized by the BAC,” it said.
The tribunal sided with Joson’s defense that he only approved the contract upon BAC’s recommendation to award the contract to A.V.T. Construction after evaluation of all the documents submitted by the firm and that he also only signed the contracts on behalf of the provincial government.
Citing the Government Procurement Act, the Court said the that determination of whether a prospective bidder is eligible or not falls on the BAC.
“The BAC sets out to determine the eligibility of the prospective bidders based on their compliance with the eligibility requirements set forth in the Invitation to Bid and their submission of the legal, technical and financial documents required,” it said.
The Court said that even assuming that Joson did not ensure that the eligibility documents were attached to the contract, “it is settled that mistakes committed by a public officer are not actionable absent any clear showing that they were motivated by malice or gross negligence amounting to bad faith.”
“In this case, there is no showing that petitioner was motivated by malice or gross negligence amounting to bad faith in failing to ensure that the eligibility documents of A.V.T. Construction were not attached to the contract,” it said.
Lastly, the Court reiterated the doctrine it set in earlier rulings in 1989 and 2001, which held that “every person who signs or initials documents in the course of transit through standard operating procedures does not automatically become a conspirator in a crime which transpired at a stage where he had no participation.”