THE Ph2.26 billion budget of Tacloban City was hastily approved on Friday in a special session of the Sangguniang Panglungsod of Tacloban and putting its validity in doubt.
The approving budget session lacked a quorum.
The entire process, which lasted only a little over 13 minutes, and with only seven members of the city council present, was described as “highly irregular and illegal”, Tacloban City Vice Mayor Sambo Yaokasin said.
Yaokasin and the (Edwin) Chua block were absent during the October 29 Special Session.
“Railroaded” process
In a media interview posted on Facebook, Sambo accused his colleagues on the other side of railroading the process. He claimed that the voluminous proposed budget neither went through committee hearings nor had been through a scrutiny, let alone reviewed page by page, as should have been the case.
Sambo claimed they only got hold of a copy of the bulky document after the Friday special session.
The day before, Thursday, October 28, the vice mayor wrote back to Mayor Alfred Romualdez the council was deferring request for a special session and argued it cannot call for a special session as it had nothing on hand to deliberate on the floor except for the five-page budget message of the city mayor received on October 27.
The manual on budget appropriations of the Local Government Code requires members of the legislative council in any local government units to carefully look into its local expenditures program through budget deliberations and committee hearings.
Yaokasin said that passing the city annual budget “is one most important piece of legislation the legislative body should perform”.
“That is why it requires a careful review,” he asserted.
Review was important
The vice mayor was concerned about the great significance for the thorough budget deliberations as the 2022 city budget, amounting to 2.26 billion, is substantially higher compared to this year’s budget of PhP1.5 billion.
The budget increase was because of implementing the Mandanas ruling, which starts next year, increasing internal revenue shares of local government units.
Counter claims
During the special session, councilor Elvira Galapon Casal, floor leader and chairperson on the Committee of Finance and Appropriations, counters the claim of Yaokasin.
She told the floor that her committee got the copy of the proposed 2022 “people’s budget” on October 15 and subsequently deliberated on it on October 28 at the mayor’s office conference room, with members of the committee and the relevant department heads and guests present.
Yaokasin, however, dismissed Casal’s claim as a “blatant lie”.
He argued that on his queries on the floor in one session not one member of the city council can even determine the exact proposed 2022 city budget as they haven’t been furnished a copy of it then.
Or maybe because of the forthcoming election contest, Yaokasin said the Chua block was deliberately and effectively played upon and blinded by the majority block siding the Romualdez administration.
Sambo and Edwin Chua, along with his Kaibigan political powerhouse, are running head-on against Mayor Alfred Romualdez and son Raymund, with both teams vying for the mayor and vice mayor posts, respectively.
Recovery from Covid-19
Without mentioning the specific program distributions and budget allocations, Casal claimed the substantial program of expenditures covers for Covid-19 response and opening of the city’s economy.
According to her, “the committee found the budget to be reflective to the needs of the people of Tacloban, and would help them recover from the Covid pandemic”.
Contractors warned
But Yaokasin argued otherwise.
In a media interview posted on the official page of the Sangguniang Panglungsod, the vice mayor said he will raise the issue, telling the contractors who will “advance” to be cautious as the passing of the 2022 budget could be invalid.
Sambo did not explain what he meant by contractors who will “advance”.
Without naming names, however, Yaokasin claimed the hasty process was for “election and reelection purposes”.
The quorum
Present during the 8th Special Session and who approved and passed the Tacloban 2022 Budget were seven councilors, namely Evangeline Esperas, Elvira Galapon-Casal, Aimee Grafil, Dalisay Epri, Leo Bahin, Brian Steve Granados, and Thomas John Diaz.