[] Since her August 29, 2025 Sopa (State of the Province Address), Cebu Governor Pam Baricuatro has not refuted former governor Gwen Garcia's claim the Capitol does not owe any financial institution. All that Guv Pam has to do is to show a record of a single unpaid loan from any bank.
[] Since her September 10, 2025 press-con, Gwen has not disputed Pam's claim that Capitol has P1.1 billion payables. In effect, until this writing, Gwen has not disagreed with Pam on the "payables," not challenging their existence or the amount.
GUV PAM HAS ACCESS TO RECORDS. So she can quickly end the dispute over Capitol debts by making public the record of any loan from any financial institution.
Doing that, the governor can easily belie, with evidence, the claim of her predecessor there's no such debt. Until this writing, Pam has not shown the record.
Records will also show how much payables the Capitol still carries under Pam's administration, which assumed control less than 100 days ago, on June 30, 2025.
There may be no need for them, as the ex-governor didn't question the amount. Yet the public will appreciate knowing on what and how much the Province spent in Gwen's last years in office.
DEBTS AND LOANS. Guv Pam obviously lumped all the debts of the Provincial Government, as of August this year, to come up with the P1.1 billion figure. She didn't specify, except that "most of them" came from infrastructure projects.
Betcha they don't include a bank loan, dared ex-guv Gwen.
But debts -- be they bank loans or for supplies and services or for partial billings of contractors and builders -- are payables. Pam teased: You don't consider Gwen's personal loan from HSBC a debt and payable?
Debts are payables. It's just that clearly, in this case, while the governor considers all payables debts, the ex-governor excludes "short term" and "routine" bills from category of debts. Which explains her claim, made more than once, that the Province is "debt-free."
PAM, GWEN COULD BE MORE PRECISE. More precisely, Gwen could've said, "The Province is debt-free, not counting payables that are not bank loans."
More precisely too, Pam could've said, ""The Province is saddled with a total of P1.1 billion debt, but none of it comes from a bank loan."
WHEN GWEN STARTED USING 'DEBT-FREE.' The ex-governor used the term in announcing four years ago -- in August 2021, on the 452nd anniversary of Cebu Province -- that the Province had paid P74 million to Landbank, fully paying its loan, and thus was already "debt-free."
Gwen meant "no bank loans." At the time, as it is true now under Pam, Capitol may have no bank loan but would always have payables.
CONFUSION FROM USE OF TERMS apparently led to:
(a) Gwen obliquely suggesting that Pam needed to study to do her job well; and
(b) Pam retorting that it was due to her studies and readings -- "I read more books (than she does)" -- that enabled her to spot Gwen's alleged "irregularities."
IS THERE CAUSE TO BE HEARBROKEN? The governor in her Sopa lament said she was "deeply heartbroken" over the P1.1 billion debt. That would be if one does not have enough cash to pay the bills, said the ex-governor.
Gwen's advice to Pam: "Check the cash position."
In a note Thursday, September 11, Gwen told me: "Dili ikaguol ang bayranan (payables) kong dunay ikabayad./ Before crying out loud, check the cash position./ I left with about P6 billion deposited at and certified (to) by Landbank./ Pila may kwarta sa Probinsiya sa dihang nagsakit and iyang kasingkasing?/ It's as simple as that."
Short translation: Debts don't break the heart if the debtor has more than enough cash.
GWEN'S FIGURES ON CAPITOL CASH. As of June 30, 2021, Garcia reported a P7.2 billion cash position, a P10 billion increase in assets to P211.3 billion, and a P200 million increase in net income to P1.5 billion.
In May 2025, in a report just before the June 30 turnover, the "available cash" slid to P6.015 billion.
That cash, for sure, can pay the "payables," with enough to spare.