By Leonardo Micua 

 

NOT until DILG Provincial Director Virgilio Sison paid an unscheduled visit at the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod on January 10 did we know that it’s only Dagupan, among all local government units in Region 1, that does not yet have an approved annual budget for 2023 till now.

This is something bad.

It behooves to mean that some people in the Sangguniang Panlungsod did not work to meet the December 31, 2022 deadline to pass the budget set under the Local Government Code, betraying their promise to serve the people well as true public servants.

According to Provincial Director Sison, the Sangguanian’s primary duty is to pass the annual budget for without it, no program and project of the local government will be implemented.

PD Sison now knows exactly who’re behind the sinister plot to delay the approval of the proposed city’s annual budget. Definitely, it’s not Mayor Belen Fernandez nor the five members of the minority but the seven-man majority who, since day one of the new city administration, was hell-bent on making the life of Mayor Belen miserable whom they want to come to them on bended knees.

But this will not happen. Belen will not accede to concessions she will eventually regret later on.

PD Sison emphasized that the annual budget is the life blood of any government and offered his office to help the legislators pass the annual budget at the soonest possible time.

But the seven-man majority in the chamber is in no hurry to pass the budget. Aside from calendaring the proposed annual budget only during the last session of the SP on December 27, it is taking its sweet time in conducting weekly hearings with different department heads, which I suspect will continue past March.

Apparently, the majority is still under the impression that if the previous majority passed and approved the 2022 annual budget only on June 28, 2022, then not even the DILG can prevent them from doing the same this year. It has not crossed their minds that the late passage of the 2022 annual budget, per records of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, was the late submission of the Devolution Transition Plan required by DILG and Executive Order 138 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The Capacity Development Plan required by the DBM was also submitted late because the data provided by the mayor’s office did not reconcile with the data of the accounting and budget offices and had to be redone.

In the proposed annual budget for 2023, Belen saw to it that the required Devolution Transition Plan and the Capacity Development Plan were included.

By scheduling the proposed annual budget calendared for first reading only on December 27, it’s obvious that the majority’s intent is to use the late approval of the 2022 annual budget as an excuse to delay the passage of the 2023 budget, then they are obviously out to avenge the monumental defeat of their patron, Brian Lim, in the hands of Mayor Belen in the May 9, 2022 polls.

The chairman on the committee appropriation announced the holding of committee hearings on the budget in 2023 but with no specific dates for the hearings.

That is totally unacceptable to the people of Dagupan and I’m confident that Belen will not take this matter sitting down.

She can go to the Ombudsman and file administrative and criminal cases against those who plotted to make the lives of the people of Dagupan miserable.

We all know that a delayed annual budget is definitely not a mark of good governance and DILG is encouraging all LGUs to take the path of good governance. Without a budget to boot, it cannot decisively act on all challenges and exigencies in implementing the programs.

Do the seven members of the majority think they are hurting Belen? Not her but all Dagupeños for whom the programs and projects of the city administration are intended for.

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There’s one national government office in the province whose officials must be placed under surveillance by Malacanang for blatant graft and corruption. 

That office is being denounced by their clients for reportedly demanding cool P5,000 in cash for every official document that goes out from it.

What poor Juan de la Cruz who earns his daily keep by toiling from sunrise to sundown can pay for the under-the-table transaction without resorting to borrowing? 

Shameless in their government uniforms, these officials are giving the PBMM administration a big black eye. 

Mr. President, give them the boot that they deserve!

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