City registrar's office asks for funds

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Civil Registrar Evangeline Abatayo is asking Mayor Michael Rama to look for other funds that can be used to complete the construction of their building and particularly for the digitalization of their records.

The Local Finance Committee had earlier proposed a budget of P22,869,606 for the expenses of the Office of the Civil Registrar for 2012, but the City Council slashed it to only P9,669,603.

The proposed P12-million budget for the completion of the new building of the Office of the Civil Registrar that also includes the purchase of a vehicle, furniture and fixtures was cut by the city council.

Abatayo explained that the P20 million allocated by the city council is not enough for the completion of the new three-storey building because the city engineers who made the program of works and estimates (POWE) did not expect the soil in the area to be soft.

“Humok man gud diay ang yuta diha mao nga nagkinahanglan ug lawom-lawom nga pundasyon. Wala man kini maapil sa budget estimate unya didto ra gikuha sa P20 million nga budget mao nga nagkuwang ang kwarta sa pagpakompleto paghuman,” she said.

The area that is situated at the back of the City Health Department used to be part of the shore before the City did the North Reclamation Area (NRA) during the time of mayor Sergio “Serging” Osmeña Jr.

The Office of the Civil Registrar is in-charge of the records of registration of births, marriages, deaths and other related matters.

 Abatayo said the digitalization of their records is still ongoing and is expected to be completed before the middle of this year. Once the project is finished, the issuance of records can be easily done in an hour.

She said some 5.3 million pages of documents which started from 1945 up to 2010 had been scanned already. – (FREEMAN)