(7/7/08) The Compostela Valley provincial board will take up on plenary this coming Wednesday the controversial P90-million bond flotation of the municipality of the Nabunturan which oppositors charged earlier as grossly disadvantageous to the government.
The scheduled taking up of the municipal bond float is expecting a clash of legal luminaries among members of the provincial board and nominal voting to occur among members, sources told Sidlak.
Last week, the joint committee on finance and legal matters chaired by Boardmember Ruwel Peter Gonzaga favorably acted on the municipal resolution approving the feasibility study for the P90-million bond float which seeks to fund for the construction of a new market building that would replace for the public stalls and buildings which were gutted by a fire three years ago.
Oppositors charged that the bond flotation pushed by Mayor Macario Humol and Vice Romeo Mayor and his majority of councilors is exorbitant and too expensive and its terms are grossly disadvantageous to the government as earlier nixed even in a comparative study made by the town’s local finance committee.
Gonzaga, a lawyer and former vice governor, reportedly disempowered his committee citing arguments that the legal review powers of .the provincial board is limited and that it could not question the wisdom of the bond flotation of the proponent municipality.
But opposing Boardmember Atty. Arvin Dexter Lopoz countered that Gonzaga’s argument was flimsy as it would mean that should a municipal law is found to be glaringly contrary to law it would also go to say that the provincial board could not act on it otherwise for lack of legal review powers.
Critics of the Nabunturan bond flotation had also earlier charged that it was disadvantageous to the government for its expensive and exorbitant fees and other charges which included the P6.5 million for the architectural and engineering design alone which they dubbed as “sa papel pa lang” and other hidden fees, high interest rates, and other charges and expenditures that are much greater than or unnecessary if the municipal government resorts to mere bank borrowing.
Small stall renters and vendors in the town’s market have earlier expressed fear they would be dislocated from the project as the new public market to be constructed would have higher monthly rentals and advances which they said they could hardly afford.
In the feasibility study, a meter 10-square meter stall would have over P9,000 monthly rental.
Local oppositors have already mapped various legal actions including administrative case, recall and appeal for review by Department of Justice.
They charged that a project that is grossly disadvantageous to the government is violative in itself to Republic Act No. 3019, otherwise known as Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News) http://ruralurbanews.blogspot.com
