OUR editorials for the past two weeks—each encoded in a short size bond paper --- have surprisingly prompted City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo to issue explanations which would be enough to fill ten or fifteen sheets of bond paper. In turn, such lengthy explanations more than opened questions than gave satisfactory answers.

        A case in point is the contention of the Mayor that the city government can take out the proposed loan of P115 million armed only with the Sanggunian’s authority to consummate the construction of the coliseum which was one of the three issues presented to the people in the August 6, 1993 referendum. The Local Government Code is very specific in limiting the powers of the Sanggunian on referendum issues. Section 125 of the Code provides that a referendum proposition “shall not be repealed, modified or amended by the sanggunian within six months from the date of the approval thereof and may be amended, modified or repealed by the sanggunian within three years thereafter by a vote of three-fourths of all its members.” Any amendment, any modification, any repeal on the referendum project should have been made within the specified period, from February 6, 1994 to February 6, 1997. But the sanggunian did not avail of its powers within the limitations allowed by the Code. No alteration on the referendum items was made by the Sanggunian Panlungsod since 1994 until today --- until the Mayor says so --- until the Mayor told the ever-obedient Sanggunian to authorize him to make a P115 million loan for the coliseum. In effect, the Mayor is directing the Sanggunian to go beyond its own limitations.

        Another case is the contention of Mayor Robredo that the referendum on the coliseum did not specify any amount. A corollary question then is: If., indeed, there had been no specific amount stated when the issue was brought to the different barangays in City Hall’s campaign in 1993 to solicit votes for the three propositions, why did the City Mayor appropriate a specific amount and spend it to commence the construction of the coliseum? If, indeed, there were no amount stated, did the people give the City Mayor a free hand to spend as much amount for the coliseum as he would wish --- a million? a billion, a trillion? Where in the Philippines is a government project undertaken with no specific appropriation? Well, only in Naga City!

        Still another, if so much was spent so far for the coliseum, why is it that until now --- from 1993 to 2008 or for the past 15 years ---- there has been no public accounting of the much amount that piece of handiwork cost? Economics I-2Ga --- in the dialect, i-tu-ga --- demands that the City Mayor should tell the people how much was appropriated for the coliseum in 1994, how much of that amount was spent, for whom were the receipts issued, all the works that would account for every centavo the Mayor has spent so far for the coliseum. One of our columnists, Divina Valencia Acker, chairman of the Naga Historical Preservation Society, was asking in her May 15, 2008 column History Corner, for a detailed accounting of the money spent for the coliseum, “including all commissions paid”. She is asking for an independent audit of the project’s finances, for the auditing team independently appointed from an outside accounting firm. In answer to her request, Wilfredo B. Prilles, Jr., one of the spokesmen of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo, declared that the Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines (ASEP) had already made a post-Reming review of the structural integrity of the roof design. In effect the Mayor would like to tell us that structural engineers are as good as auditors. Such an answer was indeed, very revealing of the arbitrary disregard of Mayor Robredo’s men for requests from concerned taxpayers under Economics I-2-Ga.

        While we approved the construction of the coliseum through a referendum in 1993, we do not approve of the way the taxpayers’ will is slighted over, mishandled, and violated by today’s powers-that-be in City Hall.