False accusation foils proposed P210-M loan by Roxas City gov’t
ROXAS CITY – False accusation was the culprit why the proposed loan amounting to P210 million to finance the “one-stop-shop” government center in Brgy. Tiza here was not materialized.
This was revealed by Provincial Legal Counsel Atty. Jose “Joe” Villanueva during the Sangguniang Panlalawigan “Question Hour” that later turned into a debate between him and Board Member Gilbert Ardivilla during the session yesterday.
Villanueva blamed Ardivilla for presenting uncompleted documents to Commission on Audit (COA) regional office resulting to unfavorable findings from the said agency.
He added that the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) withdrew the proposed P210 million loan in favor of the provincial government because it is very sensitive on the issues raised by Ardivilla.
Earlier, Ardivilla asked the opinion of the COA regional office whether or not the proposed loan by the provincial government with UCPB is valid due to lack of feasibility study on the project being scrutinized by members of the provincial board and other pre-requisites before the approval of the loan.
The COA findings said that the proposed loan was illegal and invalid.
During the question hour, Villanueva said that the proposed loan has a leg to stand on contrary to the claim of COA’s findings. He said that there was approved resolution No. 036, series of 2007 authorizing Gov. Victor Tanco, Sr. to negotiate a loan agreement with the bank institution to augment the priority projects of the province.
“I’m not questioning the COA’s findings since it was based on the uncompleted documents presented by Ardivilla,” Villanueva said.
Ardivilla said that he only presented the documents made available by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) secretary.
Villanueva advised Ardivilla that being a “fiscalizer” of the provincial government Ardivilla should have been resourceful about the needed documents.
Villanueva said that he will study a possible case for damages that will be filed against those people who are behind the loss of provincial government’s opportunity to acquire loan from UCPB.