Raymond denies dole-outs used for political advantage

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia refuted accusations of Councilor Nestor Archival Sr. regarding alleged budgetary realignments to fund dole-outs, which the latter said might be used as a political tool.

In an interview with The Freeman last Sunday, Archival raised the concern about the allocation of government funds, believing they are being leveraged for political advantage by the incumbent administration, especially with the election season just around the corner.

But Garcia, denied this yesterday, Jan. 27, 2024, stressing that the dole-outs distributed under his leadership this year had already been budgeted for in the previous year, 2024.

Both Archival and Garcia are vying for the mayoral post in the upcoming 2025 midterm elections.

According to Garcia, He explained that these livelihood support programs were appropriated under the administration of former Mayor Michael Rama, and he is merely implementing them now.

“Kung political tool pa na, gigamit na nato karon, but if you look at the budget, kanang livelihood, that was there since 2023, 2024, 2025… so of course makaingon tingali siya (Archival), kay election naman gud hapit,” Garcia said in a press conference yesterday.

He emphasized that the budget for the dole-outs had been in place during previous administrations.

Garcia further rejected the notion that the funds were being used to gain an advantage in the mayoral race. According to him, he was simply carrying out budgetary allocations from earlier administrations that had not been implemented.

“Because I saw the need for it, and I saw the benefit to our constituents,” Garcia said.

He clarified that no budgetary realignments from other department funds were made to finance the dole-outs, stressing that any realignment of funds requires council approval.

“He (Archival) would have known,” Garcia said, referring to the realignment process, had any been carried out.

In a previous interview, Archival expressed concerns over the recent financial assistance programs implemented by the Cebu City government, arguing that government resources may have been used as a political tool to gain an electoral advantage.

He alleged that certain budgetary allocations had been realigned for livelihood support, citing that approximately P120 million originally intended for parks and playgrounds had been redirected.

Archival said this prompted him to file a resolution, which the council recently approved, calling for an executive session to trace the budgetary allocations for the recent dole-outs. He specifically noted that the executive branch recently announced financial aid amounting to P4,000 each for 9,000 individuals.

He suspects that these funds may have been sourced from the 2024 appropriations and possibly from other departments. Archival emphasized the need for transparency, claiming that no proposal for budget realignment had been presented to the legislative body.

It was also reported that the dole-out system was one of the most contentious issues addressed by the council during deliberations on the annual budget. This led to cuts in some budgetary allocations, mostly for livelihood and other “pro-poor” programs.

Further, Archival pointed to alleged asphalting projects in barangays as another possible political maneuver.

However, in the same press conference yesterday (Monday), Garcia clarified that the asphalting projects were the result of accumulated requests from previous administrations, attributing the delays to an “overwhelming requests.”

Garcia stated that no asphalting projects had been implemented in the last three years under previous administrations and mayors.

According to him, many of the roads currently being asphalted had not been addressed for the past ten years. He added that any backlog in requests was due to the high volume of requests from barangays.

Garcia also clarified that the delays were not caused by bureaucratic issues, as asphalt materials had already been procured. He noted that Cebu City currently has five dedicated teams responsible solely for implementing the asphalting projects.

Despite having budgetary allocations, these projects had remained pending for some time. — (FREEMAN)