Vizcaya provincial board stopped from buying luxury cars

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — The Regional Trial Court (RTC) here issued over the week a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the Sangguniang Panlalawigan members from buying 13 luxury vehicles worth P7 million for their own individual use.

Through the 20-day TRO, Executive Judge Jose Rosales of the RTC Branch 27 stopped the provincial board members from implementing their own approved appropriation ordinance that would entitle each of them to own a luxury service vehicle at public expense.

The order came after board member Leonardo Perez Jr., the lone oppositor of the ordinance, filed earlier last week a complaint of lavish spending against his colleagues led by Vice Gov. Luisa Cuaresma.

He said that buying luxury cars at this time is a blatant disregard of President Arroyo’s call for all public officials to initiate belt-tightening measures as a result of the economic crisis the country is facing.

Perez said his colleagues could be held liable for spending such an amount amidst the present economic crisis. The province he said, is in a state of calamity because of the long dry spell that has already cost local farmers more than P80 million worth of damaged crops.

"Under the provisions of the Civil Code, these officials could be charged for lavish spending based on the present economic hardship we are in," Perez, a lawyer, said.

Perez was joined by noted human rights lawyer Ernesto Salunat here in suing the provincial board members for thoughtless extravagance.

"Buying unnecessary things during these hard and critical times is immoral and contrary to public policy and welfare," Salunat, former Northern Luzon governor of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, said in a separate petition made in his capacity as a taxpayer.