BACOLOD City Acting Vice Mayor Ricardo Tan will seek a clarification from the Office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)-Bacolod to resolve the issue that his colleagues disallowed him to cast his vote on the approval of the city’s application loan with the Department of Finance (DOF)-Municipal Development Fund Office.
Tan said Friday that he will go to the office of DILG-Bacolod on Monday so that this issue will be resolved.
“There’s should be a clarification why I’m not allowed to vote since I give up my position as a presiding officer so I can participate in the city’s loan discussion,” he said.
The City Council had earlier approved the request of Mayor Evelio Leonardia to authorize him to apply for a loan with the Department of Finance (DOF)-Municipal Development Fund Office amounting to P1.7 billion to fund the city's flagship projects.
After the deliberation which was presided by Councilor Sonya Verdeflor, 10 councilors voted in favor of the loan.
Councilor Claudio Puentevella voted against it while Councilor Wilson Gamboa abstained.
Distrito earlier said Tan was disallowed to cast his vote because he was an acting vice mayor since Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran was the acting mayor as Leonardia travelled abroad.
The approved measure was for the application of the P1.7 billion loan to finance the city’s flagship projects - Progreso Village Relocation Site, P350 million; Bacolod City College Site Development and Facilities, P350 million; construction of Bacolod MassKara Coliseum, P800 million; and the construction of roads and bridges, P200 million.
Tan said he only received the loan application’s request 20 minutes before the session.
“I did not expect that these items will be included in the agenda so I asked them if they could defer these so they will have enough time to study the request,” he said.
Tan noted that before to approve the mayor’s request, complete documents should be provided to the councilors such as the copy of the annual investment plan and the study on capacity and capability of the city to pay.
“We should know all of these if these projects will be advantage or disadvantage to the city. I am against on the loan application, but I am not against on the city’s project. These projects should be studied to determine the urgent projects,” Tan said.
He said as a member of the City Council, all of them have the right to cast their votes in any basis.
“They are the majority and they have the number, that is why the mayor’s request was approved,” he added.
Puentevella said the city’s application loan amounting to P1.7 billion loan will be the biggest loan in the history of Bacolod.
“We should study first the implementation of the projects and why we applied it now which it’s a time of the election,” he said.
He added that the city’s loan is a disadvantage to the City Government.
For his part, Acting Mayor El Cid Familiaran said it’s a well-studied project because they approved it last year.
“It took us more than a year to study these projects for the development of our city. It’s not about the election. It was studied and approved by the Social Development Plan, City Development Council and the members of the City Council,” he said.
Familiaran disclosed that there’s nothing wrong with this loan and the budget for all these projects will be funded by a loan to be taken also from the government, the DOF which will have a very minimal interest of three percent per year." he said.