MBTF: Opposition councilors dilly-dallied on MCH
MORE THAN 2 YEARS’ DELAY
“TOO late the hero, talaga”.
This was stressed by Dagupan City Mayor Belen Fernandez, referring to the seven opposition councilors in the majority in the Sangguniang Panlungsod, when asked by newsmen why the P150 million national fund for the Mother and Child Hospital (MCH) was withdrawn.
In a talk to newsmen over Kabaleyan Channel on April 21, Fernandez pointed out that it took the majority councilors more than two years to pass just a simple resolution authorizing her to sign a Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Health (DOH), and when they finally passed this on October 11, 2024, the P150 million allotment was already reverted back to the national treasury.
She said she had been asking the council to pass the resolution required by the DOH but the majority opposition councilors even ignored her two letters she certified as urgent.
When the seven majority councilors finally agreed to pass the resolution for the MCH project after Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire came to Dagupan to sound the alarm, it was already too late. MCH budget was already unavailable based on the rule that any unused fund of agencies for two years must be returned to the national coffers.
The mayor said it was the endless and clear pattern of obstructionism carried out by the opposition that started with their refusal to pass the annual budgets of 2023 and 2024 on time, and supplemental budget no. 1 of 2022, and supplemental budget no. 2 of 2023, and supplemental budget no, 2 of 2024 that deprived Dagupenños of the hospital dedicated to mothers and children.
She told newsmen that if she, Vice Mayor Bryan Kua and their entire Unliserbisyo Team are reelected, they will ask re-electionist Rep. Gina de Venecia to sponsor a bill allocating another fund for the construction of the MCH in the city. (Leonardo Micua)
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