{"id":103170,"date":"2017-05-19T03:02:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=103170"},"modified":"2017-05-19T03:02:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T07:02:00","slug":"osg-says-no-anomaly-on-excess-allowances-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/05\/19\/osg-says-no-anomaly-on-excess-allowances-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"OSG says no anomaly on excess allowances in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Office of Solicitor General on Thursday said that there was no anomaly in the allowances given to its lawyers as it is governed by Republic Act 9417 or the OSG Charter. (PNA photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014The Office of Solicitor General on Thursday said that there was no anomaly in the allowances given to its lawyers as it is governed by Republic Act 9417 or the OSG Charter.<\/p>\n

The OSG commented on the latest report of the Commission on Audit (COA) on its website on May 17, the annual audit report on the OSG that Solicitor General Jose Calida and his predecessor Florin Hilbay and 15 other OSG lawyers received excess honoraria and allowances totaling Php 8,555,767.80 in 2016.<\/p>\n

In its report, COA said Calida and Hilbay received millions of pesos in \u201cexcess\u201d allowances last year with the former receiving as much as Php1.123 million in excess allowances from July to December 2016.<\/p>\n

The COA report further stated that while government officials are allowed to receive allowances and honoraria, it must not exceed half or 50 percent of their annual salary.<\/p>\n

A Solicitor General receives an annual salary of PHP1.8 million.<\/p>\n

Calida through OSG spokesman Erik Dy explained that under their Charter their lawyers are authorized to receive allowances and honoraria for legal services rendered to client agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is due to the government\u2019s intention to attract the best and the brightest lawyers to work and build a career at the OSG,\u201d Dy said in a statement.<\/p>\n

He further explained that the issue of allowances between the OSG and COA is nothing new as this happened even during previous administrations.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he insisted that the \u201cOSG is steadfast in its position that a COA administrative circular cannot abrogate a substantive law such as the OSG Charter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay also said there is nothing anomalous about the matter as he echoed that the allowances are guided by RA 9417.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allowances of all lawyers of OSG, past and present, are allowed by a very specific provision of law, Section 8, of RA 9147. The COA doesn\u2019t have the authority to countermand an act of Congress,\u201d Hilbay said in a text message when sought for comment.<\/p>\n

That provision states that \u201cthe legal staff of the Office of the Solicitor General are allowed to receive honoraria and allowances from client departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that has always been the position of the OSG under every Solicitor General.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe COA can\u2019t amend a law, especially a specific provision of law that goes back to the Administrative Code of 1987 and reiterated under RA 9147,\u201d Hilbay added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014The Office of Solicitor General on Thursday said that there was no anomaly in the allowances given to its lawyers …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":103172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,16,95],"tags":[9900,18826],"class_list":["post-103170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-commission-on-audit","tag-office-of-solicitor-general","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}