"Political budget" stinks

Tomorrow is not just any other day in our lives. Since man has invented the calendar, he, with apologies to those in mourning and those who, for one reason or another, have lost track of time, counts the day like tomorrow as the beginning of a new year either as a transition from the last year or as a completely new day to start something. In the context that it is a new beginning for most of us, let me, my lady Carmen, my family and everyone in this paper, greet all of you a very prosperous new year.

Few days ago, I read of the announcement of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña that he had a “political budget” prepared for the South District of this city. Since the term the mayor used was something new to me, I had to read the news again and attempted to internalize what he meant. Silly me, I even had to revisit my constitutional law books (I taught the subject for 20 years before I stopped teaching in 1998) if only to appreciate whatever nuance the city chief executive appended to the term. Then, when I concluded that it was a new coinage by the mayor, I thought it, probably, was his unique way of greeting the residents in the south district a happy new year.

Unfortunately, that unique greeting carried with it immoral undertones. (I will dwell on the illegal considerations in a later column.) Without these possibly serious nuances that the mayor might have missed, I would have not spoiled our celebration of the new year tomorrow with this kind of a column today.

As I understood the news, the mayor made sure to have a budgetary allocation in the amount of over one half billion pesos for projects intended for the south district. By his design, the budget is solely for the south. Not a penny is targeted for use in the north district. The unprecedented outlay of a huge sum shall be spent in the weeks leading to the May 2010 elections and that was why he called it a “political budget”. (Did I hear the mayor hinting that this was some kind of a war chest for his congressional aspirations against a genuinely benevolent opponent?) So while public funds are poured for all kinds of public works in that blessed south congressional district, the residents of the north district will only salivate.

For the past two years of this last term of the mayor, I heard of no such kind of budget for either or both north and south districts. In fact, the city has been so burdened with paying its debt for the South Reclamation Project that, for several years, it has had no sufficient funds for any undertaking. The timing therefore is clear. These expenses are intended to “persuade” the voters of the south district to electing him their congressman. There is gutter language applicable to this gimmick – vote buying. In this case, it may be as massive a gimmick as anyone ever witnessed.

Had there be no elections this coming May when the incumbent city chief executive is a candidate for congressman of the south district, the mayor would not have seen fit to spend public funds there. It is not public service that moves him to undertake projects in that district. He allocates this enormous money, not because he discerns the importance of such projects but purely to ingratiate himself to the electors of that district. This “political budget” is thus an open, crude and wanton misapplication of public funds.

In admitting to be using people’s money for election purposes, the mayor risks the ire of the voters of the north district. The taxes are raised not from the sole contribution of the residents of the south. People in the north also pay taxes. Considering that his anointed successor is his perceived robot, and his candidates for city council his stooges, the electors of the north may not want a repetition of a similar misuse in the future. To prevent that from happening, they may just cast their vote for candidates opposing the camp of the mayor. Oh Gosh!

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