Lim prepares to veto P581 M budget

By Mortz C. Ortigoza DAGUPAN CITY – Mayor Benjamin Lim is set to veto a line item in the P581 million budget for 2012 which was approved recently by the Sangguniang Panlungsod (city council). City Administrator Vladimir Mata said there were some provisions colatilla to a section of the ordinance that Lim deemed for a possible veto. “We are still preparing for the veto message of the mayor and we will be coming out with the message probably before the end of the 10 day reglementary period,” he explained. Although Mata refuse to cite the provision that got the attention of the executive department, he agreed that the particular item will make it hard for the Lim Administration to implement a certain project. Mata said the controversial P10 million budget intended for the lying-in hospital and the P4 million budget for the Tsunami Hill in Pugaro village have been approved by the SP. He explained that the P4 million is the initial phase of the project, while the remaining P2 million will be sourced from this year’s calamity fund. “The tsunami hill could be implemented because the fund is charged from the 2011 calamity fund which we already approved by the SP in 2011,” he said. He said the eventual approval of the budget for the tsunami hill was buttressed by the assurances of the Mines Geosciences Bureau and the Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology that the project is technically sound. In 2011 the city council slashed the P568 million prepared by the Lim administration to P487 million. But the mayor vetoed it as ultra vires or prejudicial to the public welfare that resulted in a square-off between the mayor and the pro- Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez’s councilors who dominated the legislative body. The SP override the veto, forcing the city to operate on the P487 million budget.