Deal with Holcim at risk
By Leonardo Micua
IN last week’s proceedings of the committee hearing on the 2024 annual budget attended by Mayor Belen Fernandez, Councilor Redford Erfe-Mejia, the chairman on the finance, budget and appropriations committee, sought clarification about the tie-up between Dagupan and Holcim Philippines, and why she has not sought authority from the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
Mayor Belen was forthright in her answer. She said no authority is needed since the city‘s arrangement with Holcim is only exploratory, involving only the delivery of some of Dagupan’s solid wastes to the company and the city is not spending a centavo for it.
She said once the tie-up is found favorable and beneficial to the city, she will seek authority. City Legal Officer Aurora Valle affirmed that there is no need for a MOA at this stage.
She reminded Erfe-Mejia that Dagupan lost the partnership with Sure Global because of the refusal of the Lim administration to pursue and implement the US$15 million Waste- to-Energy Project. Hence, the tie-up with Holcim that has similar arrangements with 56 other provinces, is a blessing.
Speaking of the need of the city government to get authority for the mayor to sign contracts, Mayor Belen knows what can happen if she asked for authority to enter into a MOA with Holcim. The fact that the majority in the Sanggunian had rejected most of her requests that resulted in delay or cancellation of projects, there will be endless committee hearings only to reject it.
Take the case of the P150 million Mother and Child Hospital that needed resolution authorizing Mayor Belen to sign a MOA with the DOH that launched the project. They came out with a committee report that said it was not in favor of granting authority unless the documents that they required are submitted. DOH officials rushed to Dagupan with all the required documents required, tagging along their legal officer to explain the legal aspects.
And what did the seven councilors do? They boycotted their own regular session so that the matter of the Mother and Child Hospital would not be taken up with DOH officials in attendance.
Fed up by the obstructionism of the seven councilors, our columnist Atty. Gonz Duque is bent on seeking a mandamus before the court to compel the seven councilors to pass the authorization requested by Mayor Belen, arguing that the 180,000 people of Dagupan approve of the Mother and Child Hospital while only seven people are blocking it for political reasons.
Also left unacted is the resolution authorizing Mayor Fernandez to endorse the Department of Transportation as the implementing agency for the Tri-City Ferry Project among Dagupan, Alaminos and San Fernando cities.
The worst thing they did was rejecting the resolution authorizing Mayor Belen to create a Personnel Selection Board in the city government as required by the Civil Service Commission and another authority to the mayor to sign a usufruct agreement with the Bureau of Fire Protection over a piece of land at the Perez Market site where BFP will build its own building.
These measures were finally approved only because three majority councilors were out of the country, and only four attended. The situation made the five-man minority suddenly become the majority! Hence, the two measures were passed.
The authority to the mayor to sign a MOA with PDEA for the creation of Balay Silangan was already long overdue before they granted the authority. They held several committee hearings and soon realized they needlessly inconvenienced PDEA officials in the region and the central office to attend the hearings. The last hearing left the PDEA officials waiting in the session hall only to be told that the seven councilors all left for Manila to attend a party hosted by the Vice President.
Note that it took the committee of Councilor Alfie Fernandez months to decide on a resolution authorizing Mayor Belen to choose five hectares of the less than 30-hectare land in San Jacinto bought at P1l million by the Benjamin Lim administration in 2004, and lost.
The other measures deliberately blocked by the majority to make the administration of Mayor Belen less effective were Supplemental Budget No. 1 and its AIP in 2022, and Supplemental Budget No. 2 and its AIP in 2023,. The consequence of their obstructionism resulted in non-payment of additional bonuses granted by an Executive Order of PBBM.
Now you know why Mayor Belen is not optimistic if SPs authority on the deal with Holcim is eventually required. She knows she may lose the Holcim deal by the tyranny of opposition’s numbers.
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