The cat is out of the bag. In a seminar workshop on the urban poor, held at the Ateneo de Naga University last week, Willy Prilles, the image builder of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo, admitted that “in one way or another ordinances have been enacted by local officials in government for their own re-election.”
The issue discussed was Ordinance No. 98-033, “An Ordinance providing for a Comprehensive and Continuing Development Program for the Urban Poor Sector”, particularly Section 3 and Section 22 of Ordinance 2003.Two sections of these ordinances seem to give substance to the statement of Willy Prilles and leave a strange taste in the mouth. First is that the ordinance requires that the payment period of the beneficiary of the urban poor program is ten years, a period that is a bit long and long enough to cover the three terms of a city official. Second is the requirement that qualifies one as an urban poor beneficiary, which is that one must be a registered voter of the city as of the immediately preceding local election ---- which prompted many attending the seminar workshop wonder about the sinister design of the ordinance.
Obviously if an ordinance is enacted to ensure the re-election of a local official, then there is no doubt that such an ordinance ----- or any ordinance for that matter ---- has become a medium for the “perpetuation in power” of a local official, no matter how brief, and for the establishment of what was described as political oligarchy by Archbishop of Caceres Leonardo Z. Legaspi in his New Year Day Pastoral Letter.
Another ordinance that does not speak well of the City Government is its budget ordinance published in its website www.naga.gov.ph which claims transparency, that is very essential in a democratic form of government, which actually does not give enough data, enough to make its claim to transparency true and real.
As published in the website of Naga City, the budget for 2009 consists only of 33 pages. For these much pages, the city government claims transparency. But the budget actually consists of more or less 138 pages. Much of what are not published in the website ---- the unpublished 133 pages ---- are the more interesting pages of the budget. These pages are about the salaries of the employees, the contractual and casual workers, including vacant positions with allotted salaries. To mention a few: Administrative Officer V (Records Officer III), P 230,016; Supervising Administrative Officer (Budget Officer IV), P293,676; Supervising Administrative Officer (Budget Officer II), P202,884; Administrative Officer V (Accountant III), P230,016; Computer Programmer II, P193,116; Teacher III (DayCare Worker II), P136.176. Even only for these six vacant positions included in the budget for 2009, the city has allotted more or less P1.2 million. Where did the city spend this amount? Why budget an amount for a position that is vacant? Transparency does not leave any room for questions of this nature, which the City Government resents.
Were one to ask a copy of this budget, a printing fee of P50 per page is demanded by the City Government, which evidently is very prohibitive, which more evidently is a subtle way of telling one that one’s request is prohibited.
Willy Prilles might not have meant to say what he had said about the enactment of ordinances, partly for the purpose of re-election of local officials. But the cat kept in a bag is not meant to be kept for a long time, not in Naga City, if only its citizens remain vigilant.
