What’s Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama up to?
To counter road blocks by the City Council, which has refused to approve his gargantuan, unprecedented Supplemental Budget No. 1 of P2.85 billion, he’s responded with a flat-as-a-pancake annual budget proposal of P8.9 billion.
There’s a tactical reason for doing so.
On the record, the mayor says his “People’s Budget” had been trimmed to give flexibility to whoever will assume office after next year’s elections.
Since he assumes the next one in line in 2016 is himself with Team Rama candidates in a best-case scenario, the mayor is setting himself up to live with a lean annual budget –– and coming back to the City Council to approve more supplemental budgets in 2016, as the needs arise or as funds allow.
A second reason: less hair splitting.
“Perhaps the City Council won’t spend much time tinkering with it,” said Rama, and just approve the whole annual budget.
Not really. The mindset of Bando Osmena stalwarts in the majority bloc is to apply a magnifying glass to every entry submitted by the mayor, whether it fills five pages or two volumes.
The bare bones 2016 budget puts additional pressure on the City Council to solve its budget impasse. This is where the stakes get high.
While Cebuanos wait with growing impatience for City Hall funds to be released for basic services like garbage collection so that public roads and barangays don’t reek of uncollected trash –– a scenario that has been repeating itself since August when the allotment ran out ––- citizens are made to watch with horror a power play in the City Council over who gets to spend the mother of all revenue, proceeds from the sale of two lots of the South Road Properties (SRP).
The legal questions about the use of SRP proceeds for Supplemental Budget No. 1 were raised in court, where it should rightfully be decided but without tying the hands of the City Council to dispose of funds raised in a transparent public auction.
Mayor Rama is forcing the issue by committing himself to a slim budget in 2016.
To the City Council, he’s saying this: Approve SB No. 1, which will wipe out the debt of the SRP loan and spend P448 million for various “urgent” needs, including garbage collection, or risk the anger of the public. Decide now because there won’t be a fallback provision for this in the 2016 annual budget.
By limiting his annual budget to a mere P8.9 billion, which is even lower than the current year’s spending, Rama is gambling all or nothing on the passage of the super-big SB No. 1 and asserting his authority to spend P3.8 billion income from the sale of SRP lots expected to bring in P8.3 billion.
Will the City Council, controlled by his critics, give way now?
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