WHILE Mayor Belen Fernandez expressed her gratitude to the city councilors for their support for eventually approving the P768 million annual city budget of Dagupan, she took exception to the “baseless accusations, allegations and, suspicions” aired by four councilors in their respective privilege speeches.

In an interview, Fernandez said while the city government as well as the Dagupeños, particularly the emergency workers, can begin to heave a sigh of relief after the councilors eventually passed the budget on Jan. 12, she lamented that it took SP three months to act on the proposed budget that was submitted to it as early as October 15 last year.

Visibly irked by the charge of the Minority Leader Councilor Redford Erfe-Mejia and three other councilors that she “accused them of demanding P10 million for each of them,” that she “was deceiving and bullying them to approve the budget,” she detailed her reaction to each charge.

Denying vehemently that she accused them of extortion, she said the wrong impression was created by a text message that a radio anchorman received and read while she was being interviewed on air, and which insinuations she quickly dismissed as untrue. She said a tape of the interview can easily prove it.

On the allegation that she “deceived” and  “bullied” them, she said Mr. Erfe-Mejia “should watch his foul language,” forgetting that she has a program on anti-bullying.

“I did not bully them. Not me, who has actually a program on anti-bullying,” the mayor retorted and chided Councilor Erfe-Mejia for not studying the proposed budget and for failing to raise his “concerns” when he attended the marathon committee hearings conducted in November.

On Councilor Alvin Coquia’s complaint that the budget allotted to the SP was cut by P8 million (from proposed P52 million to only P44 million this year), Ms . Fernandez justified it by pointing to SP’s unspent budget of P5 million from SP’s P42 million allocation last year.

On the claim of Councilor Alfie Fernandez that the reduction in the budget would not allow the councilors to serve snacks during committee meetings, citing their difficulty over a measly budget last year, the mayor debunked his claim and cited an unspent balance of P81,000 for food at the end of 2015 given its P500,000 budget in 2015.

She went on to cite a one-time expense of more than P200,000 last December 7 for food alone by SP and she wondered what and to whom were P200,000 worth of food served.

The mayor also ticked off a budget for the purchase of a copying machine and a motorcycle but records showed these were purchased only in November last year when these were supposedly needed in early 2015.

The legislative body, she said, was also allocated P800,000 for the purchase of a generator but records show that no generator was purchased but the amount was used for another purpose.

Pointing out further that the SP does not actually lack financial support as claimed by the councilors, Ms. Fernandez said the budget for their gasoline expenses still had a remaining balance of P106,000 by yearend.

On the requested P270,000 in 2015 for overtime services that was not included in Supple-mental Budget No. 2, Ms. Fernandez also maintained  that with 46 regular employees and another 78 emergency workers assigned to the SP,  she could not see a justification for the requested budget for more overtime pay since the city government already paid P1.2 million in 2014 and P400,000 in early 2015.

She said records show one employee in the SP collected more than P100,000 in overtime pay which is highly questionable considering the big number of employees assigned to the  SP reportedly working on the codification of ordinances, a task better left for lawyers to do. She did not identify the employees who received overtime pay for the task. (Leonardo Micua)

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