Urbiztondo in “financial distress”
URBIZTONDO—The new mayor here who succeeded slain Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr. said the town has been plunged into a deep financial debt worth P60-million.
Obligations include unpaid Government Service Insurance System premiums, P3 million; unpaid electric bills to Central Pangasinan Electric Cooperative, P7 million; several hundreds of thousands of pesos owed to the Postal Bank, and a P47-million loan from the Philippine National Bank (PNB), Mayor Martin Raul Sison II said.
Other suppliers are also demanding payments, he added.
“I told them to please bear with us because we are in deep financial distress but we would schedule our payments with them,” said the twenty-five-year-old mayor.
Sison said he has appealed to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) through a letter for seeking reconsideration dated July 3 addressed to Vice Gov. Jose Ferdinand Calimlim Jr. “relative to the PNB loan and loan amortization appropriation” of his town.
The SP earlier disapproved an appropriation ordinance passed by the municipal council that authorized the late mayor to transact in behalf of the town for the PNB loan and for the payments due to questions on procedures prior to its passage.
The transaction was made ahead the passage of the ordinance so the SP disapproved the payment of the amortization, he said.
PNB wrote Sison a letter asking him to pay the town’s dues.
“I wrote the SP a letter for a motion for reconsideration so that we would not be sued,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sison said when he took over as mayor, only P55,000 was left in the town coffers. But the LGU’s Internal Revenue Allotment worth P5-million is expected to arrive in the first two weeks of the month and the rest half of the month, P1-million is also expected to arrive, he added.
The amount is being spent for their obligations like salaries of employees, operating expenses, among other dues, he added.
It may be recalled that Balolong and two others were shot dead on June 7. Three others were wounded in the gun attack.—Tita Roces
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