St. Francis demands P1.6 million from City

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Government is demanded a payment of P1.56 million worth of burial services rendered by the St. Francis Funeral Homes to city constituents under the City Burial Assistance Program.

The amount demanded represents the bill of the city for this year before the barangays turned over the processing of the burial assistance to the City Hall. The burial assistance program used to be handled by cluster barangays but they decided to give it back to the city because they could not handle the paperwork.

Of the P1.56 million being demanded by St. Francis Funeral Homes, P984,000 is owed by barangay Basak San Nicolas, P224,000 by barangay Guadalupe and P360,000 by barangay Tisa.

Barangays Basak San Nicolas, Guadalupe and Tisa used to be the cluster heads tasked to process the applications of the barangays assigned to them.

The remaining unpaid bill by the City to St. Francis was not settled immediately allegedly because the program ran out of funds.

“We have been constantly following up City Hall and the latest news we heard is that there is already a budget for the burial assistance,” said lawyer Zigfred M. Diaz, vice president for operations.

Diaz, however, lamented that they were asked to submit documents.

“How can they ask us for documents when everything was submitted already to City Hall since early this year?

The Office of the Mayor took over the burial assistance program from the barangays. The program also now has a new system where the burial services component of the program has been bid out and awarded to one funeral company.

Meanwhile, the City Government now allows the late filing of application for the burial assistance program after Mayor Michael Rama issued an order relaxing the 60-day prescriptive period to apply policy of the program.

Executive Order No. 11-13 which amended Section V of Executive Order No. 11-7, now provides that the mayor may, upon his discretion, allow the late filing of application for assistance for humanitarian reasons.

But the death of the deceased subject of the claim must be within the fiscal year within which the fund is allocated.

The mayor said that the claimants always have a hard time complying immediately with the requirements for the burial assistance due to financial constraints.

E.O. No. 11-7 is the order allocating P20 million under the “aid to the city barangays” annual budget 2011 to fund the burial assistance program.

The amendment will allow those whose family members or immediate relatives died early this year but failed to claim their assistance within 60 days, to still file but the decision whether they will be granted or not lies with the mayor.

However, claimants are advised to apply within 60 days to avoid delays in the grant. (FREEMAN)