Their milking cow (2)

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
6/11-12/2011



The proposed ordinance has become nauseating because there are huge allocations in the yearly budget that betray the claim of those greedy local politicians of the need for additional funds to finance their high-sounding socialized housing program. Rather, what is visible is their desire to institutionalize their corrupted practice of using the project as their leverage to exact political loyalty. For instance, how could the city government explain why it allocated a yearly lump sum appropriation that for 2011 amounted to P400 million; that in the last four years beginning 2008 has already reached a staggering amount of P1.4 billion without itemizing how that huge amount was spent? In fact, a lump sum appropriation without detailing how the amount will be spent amounts to issuing the Office of the Mayor a blank check which is anomalous.

Similarly, there is in that budgetary item for the Office of the Mayor which states of a 20-percent community development fund (CDF) that if one would analyze can be duplicitous to the proposed SHT ordinance. The budget would not even say what that animal called community development fund is all about to justify the Council’s yearly appropriation that for the last four years beginning 2008 already amounted to a whopping amount of P1.858 billion. In fact, even without the proposed socialized housing program, the title CDF already speaks for itself that it is intended to alleviate the deplorable conditions of our people living in those depressed areas. But despite the huge amount of resources that have been bankrolled to them, the number of squatters in the city continues to proliferate. Not satisfied, the Mayor also set aside his own barangay development fund that in the last four years has already cost the city government P568,000.00.

For the last four years also the Office of the City Mayor has been allocating a 5-percent calamity fund supposedly to help the calamity victims in the event of fire, typhoon, flood, earthquake, etc. But as observed by many, the fund has made the mayor the most generous Santa Claus for he could freely use that to enhance his own image, thereby making him the most formidable political kingpin in the country. Just like the CDF, city government has already appropriated in four years a total of P1.599 billion, that for this year alone it appropriated P455.9 million. Nonetheless, the P375.9 million calamity fund appropriated in 2009 was nowhere to be found when it was most needed by the flood victims, and the joke was it has already been swept away even before Ondoy came.

With this gargantuan but inexplicable budget allotted to the Office of the Mayor, it seems that the city is awash in money to negate the claim of the councilors of the need to impose additional tax just to sustain another of their capricious projects. In fact, in the last four years the Office of the City Mayor has already donated a total of P230 million or shy by mere P7 million of the P223 million needed to realize the proposed socialized housing program. For this year alone, it set aside P70 million. The big question is why the budget failed to indicate who the donees are, so that the resident taxpayers to verify their legitimacy as recipients. As of now nobody knows who they are, except perhaps the mayor and his subalterns.

In like manner, the mayor appropriated for the last four years a total of P26 million to subsidize those so-called non-governmental organizations and people’s organizations, possibly of his choice. Aside from the anonymity of the recipient groups, the subsidy itself is highly questionable because of the prohibition to allocate government funds to private entities, more so if they have the tendency to embarrass or discredit their benefactor, which in this case is the city government. In both instances, this generosity does not jibe with the ridiculous alibi made by those seemingly parasitic local officials for more money when it is evident their motive is to add funds to the sluice that would perpetuate them and their clan in power.

What is more anomalous is the uncannily huge budget allocated for confidential and intelligence. The amount of P160 million spent for the last four years for confidential and intelligence activities for those men in the Office of the City Mayor does not bode well to the image of the city: that either Quezon City has become a police state, or has become the safe haven of international terrorists, and the amount spent for that specific purpose appears as though the late Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida followers have managed to established their base operations here. What is more the city substantially contributes to the PNP for its needs and operations to keep the peace in the city, and surveillance and intelligence is integral to their assignment.

Finally, there is much suspicion to the proposed socialized housing ordinance that its outcome could result in massive irregularities. This many anticipate for if it is true the program is not something of a “dole out”, as Councilor Edcel Lagman Jr. would now categorically admit, then the additional tax imposed on the residents is a big anomaly. If the beneficiaries will have to pay for the housing unit, then the project partakes of an investment of which the city government is duty-bound to advance the cost from its own funds. Otherwise, it would be illegal and anomalous to use the additional tax on the residents as investment on a project they have nothing to do.

As Johnny Chang of the Movement for Better Quezon City pointed out, “Approving the proposal is to legalize the con man’s modus operandi of doing business with only his saliva as capital.” Chang said, “At this time when our people are reeling the brunt of economic crisis, the city government should assist in lightening, not adding to, the financial burden of all those residing and doing business in the city. It is in that positive direction where it could earn more without increasing and imposing additional taxes.”

• rodkap@yahoo.com.ph