Unnecessary office spaces deprive Capitol of income

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu provincial government lost millions in income due to the unnecessary allocation of office spaces at the legislative building.

Provincial General Services Office head Bernard Calderon said former vice governor Agnes Magpale deprived the Capitol of income opportunity when she gave a rented space in the legislative building to the Commission on Elections and Commission on Audit for free.

Calderon said that the second floor of the building consisting1,620 square meters was used to be rented by the Department of Agrarian Reform for P220,000 a month or more than P2 million a year.

However, Magpale asked DAR to vacate 675 square meters and gave to COA and Comelec for free. Instead of the P220,000 monthly rental from DAR, the Capitol was left with only P128,331.

“Kaning DAR unta nga nag-abang supposed to be tagaan nato’g priority nga space kay nag-abang man. Nag-income man ta,” Calderon said.

DAR has also lost parking space under the last administration. Currently, they have been given three slots of parking space. The space worth P60,000 will now be reallocated back to DAR from the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Office.

This is because CPADAO has been downgraded into a division and will be moved back to the Executive Building. COMELEC and COA, however, will keep their offices for now.

Calderon also mentioned that more office spaces were unnecessarily given to the Local School Board, the Sports Commission, and CPADAO.

“Di man unta ni kailangan ug office space specially katong Sports Commission,” Calderon said. The former office spaces of the School Board and Sports Commission would be given to the Department of Interior and Local Government. — FPL (FREEMAN)