Without necessarily pre-empting the outcome of the investigation conducted by the so-called Golden Arm Committee on the so-called unauthorized check encashment for the Lakbay Aral (educational trip) of the legislative staff assistants, the term "check encashment" is a misnomer.

By the way, all the legislative staff assistants of the city councilors were originally included in the Lakbay Aral (educational tour) but our legislative assistant was designated as chairman of the activity.

We do not wish to clear the name of our legislative staff assistant in this corner but we are just making some clarifications here because the banner story of this paper last Sunday did not carry their side of the story.

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When we say "check encashment", it means that the check, as a special kind of a bill of exchange, must be complete upon its face and presented for acceptance to the drawee bank and the holder thereof receives the cash equivalent of the check.

In the case of the LSAs, the check worth P84,000.00 was not yet complete as its face because it was not yet signed by the vice-mayor as the drawer who is also the payee thereof.

As of yesterday, the check is still in the office of the vice-mayor and was never presented to the drawee bank for encashment. Nor was there any forgery committed on the face of the check.

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What happened was more of an advance transaction. It was just like pulling the cart ahead of the horse.

The LSAs convinced the cashier to give them an advance amount as the disbursement voucher was already approved and the check lacks only the signature of the vice-mayor. The amount advanced was used to purchase their boat tickets for Manila lest they will lose their reservations considering the peak passenger season.

The rest of the amount advanced was given to a staff of the vice-mayor's office for safe-keeping.

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We respectfully submit that there was impropriety in making the advance as it was unprocedural. The LSAs should have waited when will the vice-mayor sign the check and bring it to the drawee bank for encashment no matter if their boat reservations will be cancelled.

We likewise submit that in their bid to expedite the process and catch up with the schedule of their trip, the LSAs unknowingly displayed discourtesy and disrespect to the city vice-mayor.

For this, we therefore conclude that a disciplinary action is just in order to avoid a repetition of the same in the future.

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