Town execs demand for accounting of oil spill cash, goods
Town officials in Buenavista, Guimaras wants an accounting of all cash donations and goods gathered from local and foreign sources in response to the oil spill here.
First sought in November last year, Buenavista Municipal Councilor Jonayreh Gaitano reiterated the call to the Provincial Government of Guimaras particularly to Governor Rahman Nava.
In an interview, Gaitano told The News Today (TNT) that foremost of the concern here was to properly acknowledge and give credit to the donors, most of whom he said are Guimarasnons living abroad.
The cash donations were in dollars, he was told, and credited to a special account at the Land Bank of the Philippines-Guimaras branch under the account name Provincial Government of Guimaras coursed through Project Sunrise.
Project Sunrise aims to raise funds from here and abroad for the complete rehabilitation of Guimaras.
And they also want to be apprised with the manner of distribution, Gaitano added saying it is but just and proper that the oil spill victims will not be victimized anew.
“We first passed the Resolution in November hoping to get some answers. Nothing has since been heard so we reiterated it early February. Until today, still no response,“ he added.
However, the Project Sunrise website posted the list of cash donations it has received but only as of October 10, 2006.
Based on the said list the total donations received by the provincial government amounted to P26,516,243.15 with Malacañang having released two separate amounts of P10 million each, one under the name c/o Civil Service Commission Region VI, IC, Credit Advance GMA-Malacañang dated October 2, 2006 and the other SARO No. ROVI 2006-1402 dated 8/24/06 GMA Malacañang.
The next highest donor was the provincial government of Cebu with P5 million.
The oil spill affected over 20,000 fisherfolks and their families as millions were spent thus far in clean-up operations.