IS THE ‘GAG’ ORDER BACK?

SEVERAL heads of departments at the City Hall again failed to appear before the Sangguniang Panglungsod (SP) which is holding deliberations on the proposed 2011 budget for Dagupan this year.

The members of the city council suspect that the ‘gag’ order earlier imposed by Mayor Benjamin Lim on department heads of the city government may have been reactivated since irregularities were discovered during budget deliberations and the department heads appeared hard put in explaining the details.

Those who were a no-show were General Service Officer chief Ed Magno who was in La Union, the Officer-in-Charge of the city hall’s Information Technology department, the City Accountant, Executive Assistant Maximo Alexis Tan, the city budget officer and members of the city disposal committee.

City Administrator Vladimir Mata, who was reportedly in Thailand, also did not show up at the hearing.

The SP wants Tan to explain procurement procedures and guidelines while the others are asked to provide supporting records and other documents on purchases and other spendings.

Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez said Tan was asked for the second time to appear to provide information as to the budget of the feeding program under the Social Service Program of the City Nutrition Office for which he is reportedly in charge.

The OIC of the IT department was asked to appear before the SP to elaborate on the proposed budget of P8 million for the Dagupan Computer and Equipment Office.

The chairman and members of the City Disposal Committee are supposed to shed light on the disposal procedure for unserviceable city equipment, one of which was the old dredging machine allegedly sold as a scrap for just P65,000.

INQUIRY?

Mata, in a statement, said the SP has gone beyond the purpose of conducting a budget hearing and instead an inquiry is being done, which he thinks it is no longer relative to the purpose of the committee hearing.

Mata said the office of the city mayor is going to study if there is a need to answer the SP’s directive to the department heads.

“In our system, there is what you call separation of powers between the legislative and the executive. In the performance of their functions they exercise what you call as an inter-agency courtesy. Dapat may courtesy sa mga nabanggit na institusyon ng ating gobyerno na ito ay sinusunod maging sa national government. You have to understand that this department heads are directly answerable to the mayor as the chief executive not to the sanggunian,” Mata said in a radio interview.

BUDGET HEARINGS TERMINATED

Meanwhile, despite the non-attendance of these officials, the vice mayor has already terminated the hearings for the budget and said that the en banc committee will just have to base its decision on the documents presented so far and the responses of the resource speakers who were present in previous hearings.

Councilor Jesus Canto moved for the adjournment of the last day of the budget hearing when he saw that no resource speaker was present in the February 22 hearing.

But before the chair banged the gavel to finally end the hearing, she directed the secretary to write letters to the resource speakers to submit the documents that justify the budget “within 48 hours after the receipt of the letter.”

“We would have wanted to ask more questions, particularly on the use of the 30 percent calamity fund as quick relief fund without any declaration of a state of calamity by the Sanggunian,” said Councilor Alfie Fernandez.

“Yong hindi nila pagdating, we now have to decide solely based on the documents they submitted, including their replies to questions posed by members of the city council,” he added.

During the last days of budget deliberations, members of the minority in the council failed  to show up.

DOCUMENTS

Fernandez asked the budget officer to submit to the SP disbursement vouchers related to the release of part of the calamity fund for the year 2010.

The City Disposal Committee was also asked to submit a complete list of equipment, including the dredging machine, that were already sold and a copy of the approved certification from the regional office of the Commission on Audit regarding the sale of the same.

Magno was asked to return to the budget deliberations to shed light on the uncovered irregular purchase of noodles and other food items for the city’s feeding program.

The vice mayor said all these documents need to be looked into before the city council finally approves the proposed budget within two weeks.

“Ito sana ang napakagandang pagkakataon sa mga members ng executive department to clarify themselves kung mayroon talaga silang basehan hinggil sa kanilang proposed budget,” said Councilor Fernandez.

Vice Mayor Fernandez nevertheless gave assurance that the SP will pass the budget because “it is our commitment to the people.”

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