City to pay ACT P119M once it complies with requirements

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Government is willing to pay the P119 million it owed the Asian College of Technology (ACT) as tuition of 4,500 scholars provided that the school complies with all requirements.

The assurance was made by Ida Yting, Mayor Michael Rama’s consultant, during a City Council executive session yesterday.

Payment, though, has some other pre-conditions aside from compliance with all requirements.

“ACT will be paid if all the requirements will then be complied with; but it is still subject to the availability of funds and (favorable City Attorney’s Office) legal opinion,” said Cebu City Council Majority Floor Leader Margarita Osmeña, chairperson of the committee on budget and finance.

Lawyer Jose Daluz III, former city councilor and Rama’s executive assistant, agreed with Osmeña, who is allied with majority party Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan, whose leader is Rama’s political nemesis.

Yting said ACT needs to submit requirements such as certificates of no failing grades and with failing grades; summary computation of the amount deducted from the P10,000 for each scholar with failing grades indicating the amount per unit multiplied with the number of units of the failed subjects; and “certification of no/with retake subjects”.

The city’s payables to ACT based on the billing statement it received amounting to P119 million, with P31.98 for the second semester of academic year 2011-2012; P44 million or the first semester of 2012-2013; and P24.8 million for the second semester of 2012-2013.

For this year, the City’s approved budget for its scholarship program is P300 million to pay for the tuition of 14,600 scholars enrolled in different colleges of Cebu City. 

Yting said ACT did not submit the billing for the first and second semesters of academic year 2013-2014.

Daluz, former City Council scholarship committee chairman, said they opted not to release the amount owed to ACT because of a case against former city councilor Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa that is still pending at the Office of the Ombudsman.

The case was filed by a certain Philip Banguiran in 2011 for “conflict of interest, Abellanosa being the owner and majority shareholder of ACT and at the same time city councilor at the time of the approval of the scholarship.

Daluz said that although the City Government is not a party to the case, it exercise prudence by waiting for the anti-graft office to rule on the case.

“We are just hoping nga walay (that the Ombudsman would rule that there is no) conflict of interest para limpyo ang tanan (so everything would be straightened out),” he said.

Councilor Alvin Arcilla said “there is no conflict of interest because the students are the ones who choose to enrol in ACT”.

ACT lawyer Edison Ariola also said the case would not affect the scholars’ schooling since it was not filed against the school.

Ester Cubero, the mayor’s education consultant said that despite the City’s failure to pay, ACT still accepted close to 1,000 scholars last June.

Of the 4,500 currently enrolled in ACT, 2,500 are going to graduate March next year, becoming the first batch to finish the city’s scholarship program started in 2010.—(FREEMAN)