City Council approves use of SRP sales to fund request for supplemental budget 

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Council said Mayor Edgardo Labella can use the sales of the South Road Properties (SRP) to fund his request for a P2.5-billion supplemental budget. 

The administration-allies in the council outnumbered the opposition councilors and agreed that the city government may use the sales from the SRP.

Opposition Councilor Nestor Archival argued that the 2015 sale of a 45-hectare SRP lot to Filinvest and the SM-Ayala Consortium was illegal because the sale does not have a Commission on Audit (CoA) approval. 

Archival also echoed the argument of a certain Romulo Torres, who filed a case to make the sale illegal. He said the administration of then mayor Michael “Mike” Rama was not authorized to negotiate the sale due to the lack of a council resolution. 

Archival urged the local finance committee to find another source of fund for the supplemental budget, perhaps use the P46 billion, which is currently in the coffers of the city. 

However, his requests was not heeded by the majority of the council, who were allies of the mayor. 

Councilor Raymond Garcia, the majority floor leader chairperson of the budget committee, said the case of the legality of the sale has been tackled by the court and the Court of Appeals released its decision to affirm the sales on April 2019. 

He said that the court is the proper authority to decide if the sale is legal or not, and not the city council. 

“There is no legal impediment to using the SRP sales,” said Garcia.

With this, the council approved that the source of fund of P2.5 supplemental budget can come from the P16-billion sale of the 45-hectare property. 

In a phone conference on Wednesday, August 28, 2019, Mayor Labella said that Archival was entitled to his opinion, but this will not change his decision to use the funds. 

The mayor said he finds no reason not to use the funds. /bmjo