No accounting for City's sports fund?
Liberiaga laments meager subsidy for public schools
Iloilo City -- For the past years, the city government is in the dark as to the disbursement of millions of pesos in Sports Development Fund.
It was learned in last week's regular session of the City Council that there is no proper accounting of said releases particularly during the time of Mayor Mansueto Malabor.
City Councilor Erlinda Liberiaga brought up the issue as she sought approval for her proposed ordinance establishing and appropriating funds for miscellaneous fees and other legally sanctioned fees of public elementary and secondary school children in Iloilo City.
Liberiaga who is serving her last term as city councilor observed that millions have been released for the Barangay Sports Development Fund since the time of Malabor but she haven't heard of any accounting on it.
She said, even the Commission on Audit (COA) also has no record on the full accounting of the sports development fund particularly during the time of Malabor. During that time Juncae Manikan, son of former City Treasurer Romeo Manikan, acted as chair of the Iloilo Sports Council.
It is only the City Treasurer's Office that has knowledge on how the sports development fund is spent during the time of the younger Manikan, said Liberiaga.
Liberiaga, chair of the committee on education of the Sangguniang Panlungsod lamented that the city could afford to allocate funds for sports development program without proper accounting and yet the allocation for the subsidy in public elementary and secondary school is not even enough to cope with the present time. She asked for a subsidy of P2 million. Presently, the subsidy is only P1.5 million.
At present, City Ordinance 33, series of 1990 as mandated only mandates Free Miscellaneous and other legally sanctioned fees to all elementary and secondary students in all city government schools and appropriates P1.5 million as initial funding.
Manikan was not available for comment at press time.
At present, the Iloilo Sports Council is chaired by Rommel Castro which is also under the supervision of Councilor Jose Espinosa III.
Though next year's budget is already approved, Liberiaga appealed to her fellow councilors to increase the subsidy for the elementary and secondary school children. She stressed, she will not run for next year's election and it is them (councilors) who will benefit from her proposed ordinance.
She said it will be a great service to the people if the subsidy of the public elementary and secondary students be increased. Currently, the budget for each elementary student is pegged at P25 and P27 for secondary or high school students.