GR 149240; (July, 2002) (Digest)
G.R. No. 149240 ; July 11, 2002
SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM, petitioner, vs. COMMISSION ON AUDIT, respondent.
FACTS
The Social Security Commission (SSC), on behalf of the Social Security System (SSS), entered into a Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) with the employees’ union, ACCESS. Article XIII of the CNA granted each SSS official and employee a P5,000.00 contract signing bonus, for which the SSC allocated P15,000,000.00 from SSS funds. The SSS Corporate Auditor disallowed the expenditure, ruling it was an additional compensation prohibited by the Constitution. ACCESS appealed to the Commission on Audit (COA), which affirmed the disallowance. The SSS, curiously filing the petition itself instead of the union, elevated the matter to the Supreme Court via certiorari, arguing the SSC had the authority under its charter to fix compensation, thereby legally authorizing the bonus.
ISSUE
Whether the grant of the contract signing bonus to SSS personnel is valid and chargeable against the SSS trust fund.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and sustained the COA’s disallowance. The petition was procedurally defective, as it was filed in the name of the SSS without a showing of the required authorization from the SSC as a collegiate body, and was represented by its internal legal staff instead of the Department of Justice as mandated by law. This illicit representation rendered the petition ineffectual. On substantive grounds, the grant was illegal. The process of collective negotiation in the public sector cannot include terms requiring the appropriation of public funds, such as a signing bonus, which constitutes additional compensation. The authority of the SSC to fix compensation under its charter had been repealed by Sections 12 and 16 of Republic Act No. 6758 (the Compensation and Position Classification Act of 1989). The SSS funds are trust funds for the benefit of the members and must be guarded with utmost fidelity; charges against it must be strictly scrutinized. The signing bonus, being an unauthorized additional compensation with no legal basis, was properly disallowed.