Saturday, August 16, 2008 Nalzaro: Fiscalizers or obstructionists? By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
AMONG the legislative councils in Metro Cebu, the Mandaue City Council is the most controversial. Fireworks are observed in each of its sessions. This is because, unlike its counterparts in Cebu, Talisay and Lapu-Lapu, the Mandaue council is controlled by the opposition.
Democracy is alive in Mandaue's politics. Some of Mayor Jonas Cortes’ plans for Mandaue clash with that of the Council headed by Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico Fortuna, ally of former mayor Teddy Ouano.
Cortes accused majority councilors of being obstructionists out to sabotage his administration's programs. But the opposition insists it is acting as watchdog of the abuses and excesses of the mayor and his “Kabanay Unlimited,” Cortes’ relatives allegedly dictating the affairs at City Hall.
The opposition describes itself as a fiscalizer, or one that adheres to the principle of “checks and balance.” It ensures that Cortes would not impose his whims and caprices in running the affairs of the city, especially in spending taxpayers’ money.
I received a copy of the supplemental budget requested by the mayor’s office. The opposition had found some items in the budget highly questionable.
There’s for example the P6,150,000 million requested for donations. Mandaue’s 2008 annual budget already includes P1-million appropriation for the purpose. Granting that the P1-million budget has already been depleted after eight months, why does the mayor need P6.15 million for the last four months of the year?
The mayor’s office is seeking an appropriation of P6 million for office supplies, but the annual budget already allocated P1 million for the same purpose. Granting that the amount was consumed in eight months, the opposition said, why would the mayor’s office need P6 million in office supplies for the remaining four months of the year?
A total of P67.1 million may have been spent for the salaries of over 2,000 job order employees for the first half of the year. Another P35 million for the same number of job orders has been sought, for a total of P102 million. It is double the P59.4 million budget previously earmarked for development and which benefitted majority of the Mandauehanons.
Is that number of job orders really needed to efficiently run the affairs of the city government? Or is the idea of making City Hall an employment agency among the campaign promises of Cortes?
I don't know if it can be justified. But the common problem of local chief executives is that some of their supporters expect to be hired once the candidate they are supporting assumes power.
I heard that the Mandaue City Government is planning to buy the Cebu City batching plant that cost millions of pesos. Did the mayor conduct a feasibility study on this? Did he know that it is costly to run the plant that is why Cebu City is selling it?
I learned that Cortes always blames opposition councilors for the problem. And yet he fails to implement projects even if these have been approved by the Council. An example is the P1 million barangay aid program. Nothing came out of it.
In a democratic system of government, we need an opposition. But too much politics will also ruin the democratic principle. In the case of Mandaue, I think only Mandauehanons who are monitoring City Hall and the Council can tell if the opposition is a fiscalizer or an obstructionist.
