The reason – City Mayor Carlo Gamban of Silay City called the approval last Tuesday of the P266-million executive budget as revised by the Sanggunian Panglungsod headed by Councilor Ignacio Salmingo as "the Salmingo budget."
The referendum will ask Silaynons to vote whether they approve the petition proposing the passage in toto of the 2003 executive budget and City Development Council Resolution No. 22.
Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos called it the first ever held in this country.
Five pro-administration SP members lost out to the six opposition councilors in approving the budget as approved by the SP with "minor changes," as Vice Mayor Raon Jison dubbed it.
The revised budget, however, got thumbed down by Gumban. Mayor Gumban pointed out that it is the executive budget that has to be approved, not that of the legislative branch.
Victor Gaborne, Comelec regional director, said in connection with the Saturday referendum the poll body had already imposed a ban on public works, suspension of elective officials, the hiring and appointing of government personnel of Silay.
Salmingo stood pat on his view that the executive budget should not be passed in toto.
Abalos met with Vice Governor Isidro Zayco who represented Governor Joseph Maranon. He also invited mayors of Negros Occidental whom he asked to share the cost of computerization. In short, help Comelec procure the validating machines.
First, however, he announced that amnesty will be granted to double registrants provided they come forward. He also stressed that the Comelec personnel found tampering with the voters’ list will be dismissed from the service.
Abalos emphasized that it is time to redeem the tarnished name of the Comelec by ensuring that the public perceives it "to be clean."
The cleanup starts with the arrival of the validating machines that will allow the Comelec to resume the continuous registration of voters.
He said the target is to have a clean list of voters by January or February, next year.
"We want to make sure that the certified list of voters is credible," Abalos emphasized.
He further briefed mediamen and local executives that with the use of automated counting machines, winners will be known in five hours. Each counting machine can tabulate 15,000 votes in five hours.
The Comelec chairman also asked local government units to buy additional machines to help out the Comelec. The poll body, he added, will furnish one machine per town or city.
The use of ACM (accounting machine) will also eliminate pre-proclamation protests and relieve public schoolteachers from getting caught in the crossfire of electoral protests.
Regarding where to source funds for the ACMs, Abalos said this could be done by using the Internal Revenue Allotments of local government units.
Finally, Abalos also promised to expedite the resolution of the electoral protest in E.B. Magalona town between Alfonso Gamboa and Reynaldo Depasucat.
Until now, there has been no final resolution of the case since Depasucat had filed a motion for reconsideration by the Commission on Elections en banc to review its decision to dismiss his suit against the proclamation of Gamboa.
The E.B. Magalona board of canvassers could have proclaimed Gamboa winner by 197 votes were it not for the appeal by Depasucat.
Abalos said he wants to act with dispatch on the case, pointing out that he does not want a decision coming out when the issue is already moot and academic.
Admittedly enough, Abalos said he was not aware of the E.B. Magalona case since he assumed only as Comelec chairman recently. But he stressed that he had set time frames for resolving incidents pending before the Comelec.
That was the bold statement by Negros Oriental Vice Governor Jose Raldado to the Visayan Daily Star’s Juancho Gallardo.
The Negros Oriental executive voiced out what many other political leaders whisper about. He suggested a study of the law and recommended that instead of dividing already cultivated lands, forestal and denuded public agricultural lands be utilized and subdivided among ARPs.
Provincial Agrarian Reform officer Stephen Leonidas admitted that there are a few conflicts encountered by his office. This usually involves contests to who should be included or excluded in the listing of beneficiaries.
This led Leonidas to reactivate the Provincial CARP implementing board, chaired by Gov. George Arnaiz.
The Arnaiz headed body has adopted a new strategy, it requires prospective beneficiaries to submit a development plan first before they are awarded lands. This, he pointed out, will enable a farmer to anticipate what is going to happen to his acquired land and provide him a chance to study how to be self-sufficient.
Actually, despite claims of successes, it is common knowledge that a handful of original beneficiaries are actually tilling their land. A study recently indicated that majority of the ARPs has already leased their lands. Some had even received payments for as much as seven years in advance. Others now till the land.
It was a simple wedding ceremony officiated by Imam Omar and was observe by 20 inmates.
Petita said Pearson, an American serviceman and veteran of the Vietnam war, reportedly became a Muslim two years ago in Mindanao.
Since then he has married three women in jail since he was detained last year on charges of abusing several minors in Ilog, Negros Occidental.
He was sentenced last year to reclusion perpetua on two counts by Judge Arles of the Kabankalan Regional Trial Court, after conviction for having raped twice the first of seven complainants. The victim was a 15-year-old girl.