Mercado Osmeña
The Cebu City Council questioned the allocation of P4.3 million from the city’s Accelerated Social Amelioration Program (ASAP) to fund the production of 78,000 smart identification cards for beneficiaries and City Hall employees.
Councilor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña, who heads the committee on budget and finance, said the project is not in line with the ASAP’s guidelines.
“If we’re going to pay P4.3 million for IDs, it’s like we’re depriving schoolchildren P4.3-million worth of nutrition. The ASAP is supposed to address malnutrition,” Osmeña said.
City Administrator Lucelle Mercado said they charged the project to the ASAP since the council removed the item from the city’s P13.4-billion annual budget this year.
“We wanted to get authority from the council for the mayor to sign the MOA (for the IDs) but they questioned the color and the budget. We used the ASAP funds. This year, the range of the budget for ASAP is P12 to P15 million,” Mercado said.
Exigency
Funds for the ASAP are taken from the P10 amelioration tax collected from every customer of gambling establishments, disco clubs, bars and night clubs.
About 55 percent of the funds will be used for social programs and 40 percent goes to feeding programs and improvement of barangay health and day-care centers.
In the executive session last Wednesday afternoon, Osmeña said the executive department explained to them that under section 17 of City Ordinance No. 122, “the ASAP board may from time to time introduce new programs of amelioration as the exigency of time demands.”
Mercado and Dr. Ester Concha, who heads the Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) said the inclusion of the P4.35-million project for the ID cards is covered by a resolution passed by the ASAP board.
As a board member, Osmeña said she wasn’t invited to the meeting when the resolution was passed.
Justified
The winning bidder for the production of the Cebu City government Unified Beneficiary Smart ID Cards is Manila-based card solutions provider AllCard Plastics Philippines Inc.
The agreement between the city and AllCard has yet to be signed because the executive department still needs the council’s approval.
Osmeña said the agreement will be referred to the council’s committees on budget and finance, laws and social services for review.
“They cannot charge it to the ASAP funds. They better not. How can we authorize something that does not fall under the guidelines?” she said.
In a separate interview, Mercado said the use of the ASAP funds can be justified.
“ASAP was created to address the concerns of the disadvantaged or the vulnerable group. If you talk about amelioration, it includes improvements for the disadvantaged like senior citizens, PWDs, vendors,” Mercado said.
Mercado said seniors can benefit from the ID cards as they won’t have to line up to receive their quarterly cash aid because it can be used as an ATM card.