Cebu government vetoes board-approved budget

CEBU — Where budget matters are concerned, incumbent provincial officials are bound to make history repeat itself.

For the second time in two years, the provincial government’s budget may again spark controversies among warring capitol leaders after Gov. Pablo Garcia vetoed the other day the P967-million annual budget which the provincial board had earlier approved.

Last year, Garcia vetoed in full the annual budget approved by the board due to a number of discrepancies, and re-enacted the 1999 budget.

In exercising his line-item veto power, Garcia restored the P1.13-billion proposal he sent to the board for approval.

Garcia said the deletion of certain allocations in the budget is "ultra vires and constitutes a lawless usurpation of authority."

The governor declared the pared-down, board-approved budget as "without force and effect," an action which was long seen coming by opposition board members.

Board members and budget committee chairman John Henry Gregory Osmeña slashed some P165 million from the original budget proposal under Garcia’s office expenditures on suspicions the governor would only use the money to further his re-election bid.

Garcia is running for re-election this May against Vice Gov. Fernando Celeste. Osmeña is himself the running mate of Celeste.

Osmeña deleted most of the items under the offices of the governor, the provincial engineer and provincial health officer while increasing allocations for infrastructure projects and basic services.

The resolution containing the alterations, Garcia said, should bear the signatures of the governor, the budget officer and the provincial treasurer to make it valid.

"It is illegal, null and void and is not worth the paper on which it is written. This is a sad and serious reflection on the committee on budget and appropriations of the board," Garcia said.

Garcia is giving the board until Monday to override the veto, a move which the so-called majority bloc finds useless because such action requires the votes of two-thirds of the members of the 13-man board.

The majority, which includes Celeste, can count on only eight votes.

Unless the veto is overridden, the P1.132-billion annual budget for 2001 will be enforced, Garcia said.

Board member Victor Maambong, budget committee vice chairman, said the governor is merely using the board members as "rubber stamps."

"We are like robots," Maambong said. "There is no compromise in the budget. The governor is just using us to get what he wants."

Maambong argued that the board has the power to alter appropriations in the budget, making the approval of the budget a shared duty between the board and the governor contrary to Garcia’s claim that only he has the power to prepare it. — Freeman News Service