DAET, Camarines Norte – The Sangguniang Panlalawigan here turned into a boisterous mess, reminding observers of the chaos in a cockpit, after majority members rose and took the floor to prevent board member Ligaya Lo Pedron from delivering her privilege speech on the P300,000 alleged ghost project in Daet Elementary School.

For about an hour and a half, the majority and the opposition members of the provincial board exchanged heated arguments without letup while observers watched in disgust.

While Pedron was reading the sworn statement of Jesusa Velasco, cash clerk of the provincial treasurer’s office, board member Al Herico stood up and prevented her from proceeding with the expose’.

Herico said Pedron broke parliamentary procedures when she read the sworn statement because it did not pass the scrutiny of the members of provincial board.

Board member Michael Canlas joined in and accused Pedron of inserting the reading of the sworn statement of Velasco in the agenda and demanded that it must be stopped immediately.

When the board members who prevented the reading of the sworn statement turned their blame on the SP staff, Reby Cuaño, chief of the secretariat, responded that it has been already a common practice that board members submit papers and documents at the time of the session.

Obviously piqued and infuriated, Pedron defended her action and told the board members that she only wanted to inform the people where the P300,000 went.

“I intentionally kept it to myself my intention to read the sworn statement because I know you will block me from doing it,” she angrily said.

The reading of the sworn statement was finally continued and the board members present agreed to deliberate on the matter in the committee hearing after the session which was to be about 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon.

But the opposition members were quite in high spirits because at that instance they outnumbered the majority group in the provincial board.

For the first time, the opposition dictated the situation of the session because several members of the majority group were out of the country while others were absent.

At about 2:30 p.m., Provincial Treasurer Lorna Coreses appeared but without her cash clerk Jesusa Velasco. For the third time, Velasco failed to come reportedly because of severe headache.

At that point, no one could affirm on the authenticity of Velasco’s alleged sworn statement on the issue of the ghost project. Board member Ruth Herrera, a doctor, told the body that a headache would not take a long time if Velasco would have taken her medicine. Many other Board members wondered aloud why Velasco should always have a headache every time she was invited by the Board to shed light on the alleged ghost project.

The issue involved the release as early as September last year of P300,000 for the repair of a 2-unit computer room within the Daet Elementary School that up to this time has not seen any trace of a construction work.

Member parents of the parent-teachers association have questioned the release of the amount and its whereabouts when in the first place there was no classroom to repair.