MANILA — Some separated employees of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) have returned more than P800,000 overpaid terminal leave benefits after the Commission on Audit (COA) required them do so, Press Secretary Cheloy Garafil said on Thursday.

Garail said her office started executing corrective measures "immediately after the receipt" of the Audit Observation Memorandum from COA in early February.

• COA: PCO’s P26 million terminal leave benefits lacked justification

These measures include the issuance of demand letters to separated PCO employees from the previous administration, "requiring them to refund the overpaid terminal leave benefits."

"To date, PCO has already claimed the refund of the overpaid terminal leave benefits from 38 separated personnel amounting to P824,625.37," Garafil said in a statement.

"[These were] already deposited to the Bureau of Treasury, while the remaining 7 separated personnel committed to refund the remaining amount of P203,956.96," the Press Secretary added.

The Malacañang Press Corps is still awaiting response from Garafil on the status of the remaining P25 million still unaccounted for.

PCO's legal division chief said it cited in the clearance forms of those already separated officials and personnel that "they had no pending administrative cases nor involvement in any pending investigations."

"The PCO remains committed to ensuring that all internal processes and procedures are compliant with existing and applicable rules and regulations," said Garafil.

COA earlier flagged the overpayment of P25.75 million terminal leave pay without documents and P1.02 million terminal leave benefits without the necessary deductions to separated employees.

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