SAYING they are counting the chicks before the eggs are hatched, Cebu City officials identified yesterday the projects to be funded by the P600-million down payment of SM Prime Holdings Inc. for the South Road Properties (SRP) lot it wants to buy.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said yesterday that the P600 million will fund this year’s Supplemental Budget (SB) 8, which will include cash assistance for the barangays, road repairs and acquisition of lots to be used as playgrounds and public parks.

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The City, however, has yet to bid out the 30-hectare area of the SRP that SM Prime intends to buy for P2.7 billion.

If SB 8 is approved, Cebu City will have operated on a total budget of P4.2 billion for 2009.

“We have P600 million in available funds next month from SM’s down payment... We’re already counting the chicks before the eggs are hatched, so that will push our budget for this year to P5 billion. Our problem before is where to get the money, but now our problem is how to spend our money,” the mayor said.

When asked if he was sure the sale contract will be awarded to SM and if the sale can be closed this year, Osmeña said the budget can be passed next year.

“We’re going to have to fund SB 8 anyway. If not, then we’ll fund it in SB 1 for next year,” he said.

In his news conference yesterday, the mayor said that SB 8 will be an “equalizer fund” to address the needs of the barangays that have not been funded by the General Fund and previous supplemental budgets.

Cebu City’s General Fund for 2009 is P2.63 billion. It also passed seven supplemental budgets—P50 million for SB 1, P100 million for SB 2, P196 million for SB 3, P255 million for SB 4, P313.34 million for SB 5, P200.4 million for SB 6 and P463 million for SB 7.

Among the items to be included in SB 8 are the road concreting projects worth P3 million and a bus for Barangay Sapangdaku.

“There are some barangays that did not get much. We forgot to include Sapangdaku in the financial assistance to the barangays... so we’re treating SB 8 as more or less an equalizer fund because we did not give some barangays some projects,” Osmeña said.

The mayor also said that the City will also buy new sodium lights to replace the old ones.

“We will change almost all the sodium lights to new ones that have an expected life of 12 years so they will be maintenance-free for 12 years. Thousands of functional but old lights will go mostly to Bohol’s tourism areas so Bohol will be brighter than Cebu Province to keep the queen of darkness happy,” he said in a text message and, apparently, to attack Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.

As for criticisms that he is using the proceeds of the SRP to buy votes, the mayor said this is a desperate accusation of the opposition.

He said all the expenses using public funds are subject to the scrutiny of the Commission on Audit, so he cannot use the City’s funds to buy votes.

Businessman Jonathan Guardo, the mayor’s opponent in the south district congressional race, also criticized the mayor’s plan to spend P100 million for a museum dedicated to Manny Pacquiao.

While Pacquiao deserves the tribute, basic services for the City’s residents should be prioritized, including gasoline for police cars, more fire trucks and garbage trucks and medicines for the city hospital.

“I hope these things would be given priority in terms of attention and resources. Manny deserves all the accolade but if basic services are suffering, I hope the mayor will know what to prioritize...Focus your energy on efficient delivery of basic services, this is my personal request to the mayor Osmeña,” said Guardo.