Supplemental budget no. 1; Fund source questioned anew

CEBU, Philippines - Members of the Cebu City Council yesterday questioned where would Mayor Michael Rama source out the P325.5 million needed to fund his Supplemental Budget No. 1, which bulk of the amount will be spent for the reconstruction of the Cebu City Medical Center.

The proposed supplemental budget was presented yesterday for deliberation by the committee on budget and finance chaired by Councilor Margot Osmeña, wife of Rama’s political nemesis, former south district Rep. Tomas Osmeña.

Margot, however, was not around in yesterday’s deliberation because she was out of the country. The committee’s vice chairman, Noel Wenceslao, presided over the budget deliberation.

Based on the proposal, P300 million of the total P325-million supplemental budget will be used to augment the reconstruction of the CCMC. The revised design of CCMC development plan and its equivalent expenditures will be presented before the City Council today by Dr. Shawn Espina and Arch. Mico Espina.

The SB-1 includes the proposed appropriations of the Office of the Mayor under the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) of P2 million for Burial Assistance Program to purchase at least 250 caskets or P8,000 each beneficiary; and P6.5 million miscellaneous services for barangay fire auxiliary force (honoraria of about 200 auxiliary forces in 19 barangays from April to December this year) totaling to P8.5 million.

Under the Office of the City Administrator, the personal services and MOOE amounting to P16 million is broken down into P10 million for unpaid obligations in prior years, P5 million for the monetization of leave credits, and P1 million for the traveling expenses of all City Hall departments.  This year, the city has appropriated only P10 million for traveling expenses for training, however, the requests are now pegged to P20 million. Another P1 million was allocated for peace and order program.

City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas said they will have a budgetary realignment of the continuing appropriations from 2009 until 2014 totaling to P325,565,491 to fund SB-1.

Cuevas said that the P300 million will be sourced out from this year’s approved appropriations of the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW). She explained that the budget will be realigned considering that the projects supposedly funded are yet to have program of works and estimates or POWE.

Lawyer Jose Daluz III, executive assistant to the mayor, said they can use the appropriations from DEPW considering that the office is yet to submit the POWE.

“The amount is still a lump sum amount and no POWE yet. Besides, it is still a long year we could have another supplemental budget to replenish the realigned budget because CCMC, I think is most important and urgent,” he said.

Prior to the agreed realignment, members of the council, majority of whom are allied with the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan, protested saying that the SB-1 cannot be enacted and sourced out from the “city’s actual available funds.”

Councilor Gerardo Carillo, a lawyer, said “the funds actually available as certified by the treasurer and the new revenue sources,” such as the sale of a property at the North Reclamation Area, cannot be used as ground for the approval of the proposed SB-1.

“It cannot be done because there are no actual available funds yet. The properties at the North Reclamation Area (NRA) are not convertible into cash,” he said.

Carillo instead suggested using “public calamity” as ground since CCMC was declared unfit following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake last Oct. 15.

The Local Government Code of 1991 provides that “a supplemental budget may also be enacted in times of public calamity by way of budgetary realignment to set aside appropriations for the purchase of supplies and materials or the payment of services which are exceptionally urgent or in the jurisdiction of the LGU or in other areas declared by the President in a state of calamity.”— (FREEMAN)