Politics snags Nueva Vizcaya cash gift

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – What could have been a merry Christmas for provincial employees went pfft after politics snagged the expected release of their P30,000 additional cash gift.

The reason: Gov. Luisa Lloren Cuaresma said she would not sign the appropriation ordinance for the bonuses and would just allow it to lapse into law.

This, after the provincial board failed to pass the ordinance unanimously when four minority members reportedly walked out of the deliberations on the appropriation.

Vice Gov. Jose Gambito, who chairs the 13-member provincial board, said Cuaresma was just avoiding “legal complications.”

Citing the economic global crisis among its major considerations, the ordinance calls for the allotment of some P31 million to cover the provincial employees’ P30,000 individual extra cash gift, the biggest among provincial government workers in the region.

The cash gift would have benefited 682 provincial officials and permanent employees and 252 casuals.

The minority board members who reportedly walked out were Patricio Dumlao Jr., Maybelle Dumlao, Reina Tidang and James Toledo, who belong to the Lakas-CMD-Kam­pi party of Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board chairman Thompson Lantion and former congressman Rodolfo Agbayani .

“We see a political motive behind their action. Actually they did not object to the passage of the ordinance. In fact, they were very active in the deliberations on the committee level,” said Gambito, who belongs to the Nationalista Party headed here by Cuaresma and Rep. Carlos Padilla.

But Toledo said he was not part of the reported walkout, as he earlier had sought permission to be absent from the session to attend a Christmas program in his hometown of Diadi.