CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella has submitted to the City Council a proposed P10.4-billion annual budget for 2020, lower by nearly P5 billion from the earlier budget recommended by the Cebu City Development Council (CCDC).
Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, the city council’s majority floorleader and chairman of the committee on budget, told reporters on Thursday, October 17, 2019, that the mayor decided to slash the proposed budget by P4.6 billion but Garcia was not privy as to which items were not carried into the 2020 annual budget.
As proposed, the biggest bulk of the budget was for general public service, which included allocations for the city’s departments and services, amounting to P4.8 billion. It was followed by social services, which was allotted P2.9 billion.
Aside from these budget bulks at least P508 million is allotted to economic services, P135 million for local disaster funds, P500 million for the local development funds, P700 million for debt servicing, P20 million for miscellaneous, and P492 million for the aid to barangays.
Garcia said the debt servicing of P700 million will most likely go to the amortization of the loan for the South Road Properties (SRP), a reclamation project that was funded through a loan obtained from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).
The 300-hectare reclamation, formerly called the South Reclamation Project, was funded by a P4 billion loan from Jica payable in 25 years. Amortization payments, made twice a year, will continue until 2025.
Read more: SRP loan too heavy
Although Labella said in previous statements that he would like the city to pay off the remaining P1.7 billion balance Jica loan obtained in 1995, the annual budget did not include the total amount needed to pay off the loan.
Garcia said the city may not be in a position yet to pay off the balance of the SRP loan by next year.
“The budget will now go through the council for approval. The committee on budget will review the budget for all the departments and its allocations. Only then can it be used as the budget of the city,” said Garcia.
Garcia also said that they will tackle the Annual Investment Program (AIP) first on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, before they will tackle the actual annual budget, as mandated by the Local Government Code.
The City Council is expected to approve the annual budget before the year ends. /elb