By Leonardo Micua

 

I HAVE a gut feeling that the seven majority councilors who boycotted the regular session of the Dagupan Sanggunian again last week are giving the message that they have no intention of passing the 2024 annual budget after three of their group were indicted by the investigating prosecutor based on the complaints filed by Vice Mayor Bryan Kua against them.

I gathered this on reading their body language during their last and final committee hearing on the annual budget at the conference room of the Sanggunian last March 5, that they are bent on forcing the administration of Mayor Belen Fernandez to continue operating the city affairs on a re-enacted budget.

Though they knew that Belen had nothing to do with the cases filed against them by Vice Mayor Kua because of their unparliamentary conduct during the October 10 session, they want a payback for the cases filed against them by her Vice Mayor.

Are they really going to dump the proposed annual budget or legislate a smaller budget just to get even with Belen and BK?

Ang Kapal! Is this what they want Dagupeños to know about themselves?

So what was all the 9 weekly committee hearings on the annual budget is about, receiving all the documents they asked for? Are they again abandoning their sworn duties as elected legislators all because three of them were indicted for their grave misconduct?

One said they can always find a loophole in the submitted documents and make that as the excuse not to pass the annual budget. Or, if they decide to pass a budget they will cut the proposed budget intended for some programs and projects to their barest minimum.

Councilor Celia Lim, mommy of Irene, said she wants some of the budget of the scholarship program transferred to the Persons with Disability Affairs Office that need more physical therapists. Doesn’t she know that only the executive can realign budgets?

Given what already transpired during the committee hearings, the 7 majority councilors must pass the annual budget but they refuse to see it that way. If they continue to hold the annual budget hostage, then they must face consequences like what happened to the three councilors.

Denying annual budget for Dagupan for the second time in a row is tantamount to forcing a lockdown on the whole apparatus of Dagupan City government, allowing it only to spend what the reenacted budget can offer for another year.

Or, are the majority councilors thinking of using  the 2024 annual budget as a bargaining chip to force Belen to order VM Kua to withdraw his complaints against Redford Erfe-Mejia, Alfie Fernandez and Irene Lim-Acosta?

Although an annual budget is the life blood of any government, I don’t think Belen will agree to coax VM Kua to withdraw the cases in exchange for the much-delayed annual budget.

But let’s see how Mayor Belen and Atty. Valle deal with this new possible scenario as a result of their reluctance to file the cases against the 7 councilors for their series of violations of the Local Government Code

Still, it is not yet too late to file those cases at this stage.

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