With the additional P10 million for the project, he is confident that the flood woes of the Bacolodnons will be greatly reduced.
Puentavella's optimism came barely a week after Bacolod mayor Evelio Leonardia reported that the Malacañang through the office of the DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane released the P10 million additional assistance for floodway-drainage project in Barangays Banago and Mandalagan.
He however clarified that while he was appreciative of the city government's efforts to follow up on his request, the additional fund assistance was already committed by the President and the DPWH Secretary as early as January
"After the Malacañang released my first request of P6 million for 300 meters canal construction in January, I immediately followed up on the second request of P12.5 million for another 500 meters, as shown in my letter of January 19, and again on February 18, this year," he said.
At the time the mayor and his team went to Malacañang the release of my second request for funds to cover the additional 500 meters canal was actually already in the pipeline," Puentevella added.
In the same interview, Puentavella also urged the militant groups and other civic organizations to take up the issues of the alleged massive corruption in local government units, including Bacolod, to be fair and consistent with their stand against graft and corruption.
Puentevella was referring to reported cases of alleged irregularities in the purchase of the city's 10 dumped trucks the mayor has suspended pending investigation. He also asked them to look into the purchase of textbooks for primary schools; purchase of multi-million computers; the cases in Ombudsman on the construction of the new government center; unexplained P262 million travel expenses of the city government, and the huge cash advances of city officials and employees. He also mentioned the trips of the mayor to the U.S. to attend Manny Pacquiao's fights, among other things.
"Good governance is supposed to spur a vibrant bureaucracy, energized employees, transparent operations, and more important development outputs should trickle to the majority of the people," he said.
