Following the repair of Dugusongan Bridge by Capitol workers last week, Medellin Mayor Ricardo Ramirez yesterday said the town will now resume its remittance of property taxes and other amounts to the Cebu provincial government.
Ramirez said he lifted his executive order to Medellin treasurer Ruth Gillamac last Friday after the province’s engineering department responded to his call “to repair the provincial roads and bridges in Medellin.”
Workers from the Provincial Engineering Office started the bridge repairs last Wednesday but the group has yet to rehabilitate the provincial road connecting to Dugusongan, he said.
He said Capitol officials would not have taken action on his long-delayed request if he did not temporarily withhold the remittance of taxes to the province.
“If I did not bring this up with the media, my request would not have been granted. I knew they planned not to repair the bridge until I remain as the mayor,” he told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.
“This is still politics at work,” added Ramirez, who is not allied with Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III in the Liberal Party (LP).
The Dugusungan Bridge, the longest bridge in town linking barangays Poblacion and Caputatan Sur, sustained wear and tear through the years.
“It was not because of supertyphoon Yolanda,” he explained, as opposed to the governor’s statement who said the budget allocation for the repair of the bridge was included in Cebu’s P12.2 billion post-typhoon rehabilitation plan.
Last week, Davide responded to Ramirez by describing his staunch critic as one “lacking in attention” and “impatient.”
He added that the delay in the repairs of the structures is not a valid reason for the town to hold their remittances to the province because it is required under the law.
Related Story: