Sta. Barbara SB blocks passage of supplemental budget anew
No guts, no glory? Or “try and try until you succeed?”
Such seemingly summed up yesterday’s reaction of Santa Barbara Mayor Isabelo Maquino faced with the latest rejection from the town council. Albeit initially garnering “majority” yes votes, the mayor’s request for supplemental budget failed to pass anew.
The reason? The 5 “majority” votes were not majority-enough in as far as Presiding Chair Vice Mayor Rodulfo Delgado Jr. was concerned. Not even an explanation from the town’s budget officer swayed the remaining “no” votes including controversial ex-officio town councilor Wilfredo “Neneng” Subong who chose to abstain.
As such it would be back to square one for the mayor who was also hit with a similar fate in Supplemental Budget No.1.
Yet for Mayor Maquino, buoyed by his intent to deliver what was promised to the people, he will just submit –again – the multi-million request.
“I was not surprised at all,” he told visiting reporters present. “See anything that has something to do with money for the people, I expect them to block it but when it was for their bonuses, they quickly approve too… I will submit again… after all this is not about numbers in the council but about the competence of the vice mayor.”
To the mayor’s credit though were five “yes” votes of councilors identified with his administration.
Councilor Dennis Octaviano was amongst the most vocal in support of the mayor’s request pleading with colleagues to set aside personal differences.
“Our people needs the delivery of basic services… we need to do this for them... we need to approve the mayor’s supplemental budget,” Octaviano said yet to no avail.
Supplemental Budget No. 2 was pegged at P4,801,523.
It was intended for personnel services as well as other budget allocations for the Office of the Mayor. Like Supplemental Budget No. 1, it was declared “lost” by Vice Mayor Delgado after the nominal votation resulted into 5 “yes”, 3 “no” and one abstention.
Delgado said under the Local Government Code an appropriation ordinance gets passed if it gets the majority vote of all the members of the Sangguniang Bayan. He said the Sangguning Bayan, being composed of 10 members, shall have as majority six votes from all the members.
“Even if those who voted for the supplemental budget reached to five members, it is still lacking as what is needed according to the law is six votes,” Delgado explained.