DAGUPAN City may not be able to participate in the coming Region 1 Athletic Association (R1AA) because the city government’s budget for the city’s participation is contained in the city government’s 2023 annual budget whose approval remains pending before the Sangguniang Panlungsod.

Councilor Joshua Bugayong, chairman of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, said he received a letter from officials of the City Schools Division informing him that the city cannot join the R1AA meet without any fund to be sourced from the Special Education Fund (SEF).

The division said it cannot tap the SEF without the 2023 Annual Investment Program (AIP) that needs to be approved by the SP.

The city’s AIP is attached to the proposed Annual City Budget of P1.3 billion that is still pending at the committee level composed of the seven-man majority in the Sangguniang Panlungsod.

He said city DepEd officials wrote to him as the SK chairman, who by law should be the chair of the youth and sports committee of the Sangguniang Panlungsod but he was removed for the post by the seven-man majority in the SP.

The DepEd is appealing to the SP through Bugayong to now pass the annual city budget and annual AIP for 2023 otherwise their programs and projects will continue to be jeopardized.

Bugayong lamented that the training of athletes cannot proceed and worse, uniforms and sports gears cannot be bought without the Special Education fund approved.

R1AA is an annual sports event of the DepEd regional office being participated in by schools divisions in Pangasinan I and II, La Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte and the cities of Dagupan, San Carlos, Urdaneta and Alaminos in Pangasinan; San Fernando City in La Union; Vigan and Candon cities in Ilocos Sur; and Laoag and Batac cities in Ilocos Norte.

With no funds, it will be the first time for Dagupan City to be sidelined in R1AA.

The Region 1 athletes will see action in archery, arnis, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, chess, football, gymnastics, sepak takraw, softball, swimming table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, track and field, lawn tennis, volleyball, and scrabble.

The local development council (LDC) recently passed a resolution calling on the SP to pass the city’s annual budget after it failed to pass it on December 31, 2022. (Leonardo Micua/104.7 IFM Dagupan /Rona Racca)

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