‘Is there another mayor?’
WHEN Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama returned from a month-and-a-half vacation abroad and saw the P35,000 and P10,000 bonus for regular and job-order employees reduced to P20,000 and P5,000, respectively, he complained publicly that it was not what he “wanted.”
He wondered, “Is there another mayor?”
Mayor Mike had proposed the amounts before he left. The City Council, with the same members and presumably the same party loyalty, decided to reduce them.
By asking about “another mayor,” Rama must mean that another chief executive made the City Council reject his wish about the employees’ bonus.
Ask Wenceslao, Pesquera
Councilors Noel Wenceslao, chairman of the committee on budget and finance, and Jocelyn Pesquera, majority floor leader and committee member, must be the knife-wielders. Unusual but most likely suspects.
How do we know that? The two Sanggunian leaders announced the slashing they’d do when the City Council decided last December 13, 2023 to adopt a P50 billion cap on the 2024 budget. And the duo took turns in reciting -- the week after, Wednesday, December 20 -- the items that got slashed and the offices and projects that were mangled, the blood in their hands. Their colleagues mostly watched although the sentiment shared across the political aisle was that the amount of P100 billion or even P50 billion was overly “ambitious and unrealistic.”
The week before, the budget was already reduced by half: from P100 billion to P50 billion. This week, on third reading and final vote, the total was not even close to the maximum amount the City Council had set (P50 billion): only P22.053 billion (P19.998 general fund proper, for personal services, maintenance and other operating expenses and capital outlay plus P2.09 billion for special accounts) was finally approved.
One news report said the reduction from P100 billion to P22.09 billion is about 78 percent, surely not what Mayor Mike wanted. Would he ask this time, like, Is there another City Council?
And, possibly, a punch line like: Why Joy and Noel, why?
As to the roles of the two Barug stalwarts, while Wenceslao is the committee chairman, it looked and sounded to City Hall watchers that Pesquera did most of the slashing. The P20 billion was her cap; Wenceslao was for P50 billion.
‘One-peso-only’ appropriation
People date back the term “one-peso” appropriation to decades ago, in Congress, when legislators would strike back at a government department, agency or office that offended the honorable legislators by reducing its budget for a coming year to one peso. Which is, of course, a ridiculous amount. Councilor Wenceslao told me Thursday they must state a figure.
An award of the lowly peso, to some legislators, is an expression of anger, vengefulness, even contempt directed at the recipient.
At least eight proponents asking for money, mostly for buying motor vehicles and equipment, were “one-pesoed.” Street language includes “naka-peso.”
Would Mike ‘beg, cry, fight’?
Mayor Rama said he’d “beg, cry, fight” for the P35,000 and P10,000 amounts he wanted for the bonus of City Hall officials and employees.
Would he do it too over the P100 billion budget that has been reduced to a “measly” P22.053 billion, which is smaller than the P50 billion he asked and got for his 2023 budget?
Big on celebrations
A P500 million budget for the office of the mayor was reduced to P400 million. One is not sure for now if the mayor’s request for a bullet-proof, bomb-proof Land Cruiser is included in the approved 2024 budget. Earlier, Mayor Rama seemed to have changed his mind about getting the P10.32 million SUV. There’s also no word yet if DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) or the office of the president has approved the purchase.
One will notice that the City has been spending a lot of money on celebrations. For 2024, these are the appropriations: City Charter Day, P15 million; Christmas, P15 million; Sinulog, P70 million; Teachers Day, P10 million, Palarong Pambansa, P200 million; other activities, P90 million.