SECOND S.B. FOR 2024

DAGUPAN City’s Local Development Council approved a proposed Supplemental Budget No. 2-2024 signed by Mayor Belen Fernandez appropriating P557,276,800  representing the remaining balance of Supplemental Budget No. 1-2004 passed by the Sangguniang Panlungsod two weeks ago that allotted only P43 million for benefits of employees and partly as aid to the Sangguniang Kabataan in 31 barangays.

The LDC meeting reserved P37,361,844.60 of the unappropriated balance of the more than P600 million surplus and savings of the city government since 2022 to fund a future supplemental budget in case another salary increase of employees of the city government is ordered by Malacanang at the end of this year.

Fernandez said passage of Supplemental Budget No. 2-2024 is urgent because the needs to purchase four dump trucks, one payloader, one backhoe, four “garongs:, all for a more effective waste management and garbage collection in the city.

The budget will also cover purchases and expenses for a fire truck and other equipment for disaster preparedness, rescue vehicles, ambulances; construction of daycare centers, flood mitigation projects in different barangays, construction of new school buildings and gymnasiums and a repair of dilapidated schools, fencing and backfilling of the lot occupied by the Super Family Health Clinic, purchase of a lot for a Barangay Super Family Health Center in Malued, purchase of furniture for the Angara Multi-purpose building in Bonuan Boquig, etc.

Part of the supplemental budget, said Fernandez, will be used to create 52 plantilla positions for nurses in the City Health Office who will man the now completed Super Family Health Center in Bolosan and the Mother and Child  Hospital in Pantal anticipating the passage of a resolution authorizing Mayor Fernandez to sign a memorandum of agreement  with DOH.

“These are the projects of the people of Dagupan, not my projects,” Fernandez said. “I am willing to go back to the Sanggunian to defend this supplemental budget again,” she added.

Mayor Fernandez asked: “Aren’t all these equipment to improve the city government’s operations a priority as well?” in response to the majority’s claim that what they approved was what they considered as urgent for the city.

Fernandez also refuted the argument of the opposition that the full P599 million supplemental budget could not be granted as the 2024 annual budget has not been passed and the 2023 annual budget has not yet been fully utilized as a no-brainer argument because the annual budget has a specific  programs and projects to be funded for the whole year and no one is allowed to spend all appropriations for a certain item in only one quarter or two quarters.

Attached to Supplemental Budget No.2-2024 was a certificate of urgency from the city executive. (Leonardo Micua) 

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