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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Scenario: Lim vetoes, as City Council looks for 2/3 votes


By Mario Mata
Was the legislated budget of P487 million for 2011 as compared to the preceding year’s P493 million the worst nightmare given by the City Council (Sangguniang Panlungsod) to Dagupan City Mayor Benjie S. Lim?
It depends how he can wiggle from it.
Since the 2011 P487 million legislated budget is already an approved ordinance, can Dagupan City Mayor Benjie S. Lim vetoes it?
How? By vetoing its entirety or select some items from it.
As a swivel-chair analyst wannabe, I bet he’ll do the second kind of vetoing.
Why?
1)      So he will not antagonize the employees of the city hall and the national government who are expecting a pay hike in consonance with the mandated national standardization law;
...

2)      The veto of the line items bode well for him as he would get a much higher appropriation than the P568 million in case the city operate in a re-enacted budget of 2010.
Can he do it?
Since the 2011 city budget is an appropriation ordinance, the mayor is empowered by law to veto those line items that he does not like.
One example is the previous year’s P28 million budge for the office of the City Mayor that was abusively, whimsically, and scandalously  reduced to P13 million (from this year’s proposal of P35,444,729.08).
(Note: Paging city hall guys, I ain’t got the records what line items were slashed as compared to their appropriations under the Fernandez Administration last year. Please post those line items at the comment section (provided at the last line of this column) of this blog/column. By the way, this blog tries to compete with those high rollers columnists of Sunday Punch and Northern Watch – two of Pangasinan Newspapers that go Online.)
After the mayor vetoes one or some of the line items he sends it back to the SP. Thus the SP considers   or overrides it by two-third (2/3) votes of its member.
If Tripoli, Libya is the hotbed of Muammar Quaddafi’s ardent loyalists, the Dagupan City SP is the hot bed of mostly anti-Benjie S. Lim elements. Thus their 2/3 votes mean Benjie can say adieu to  whatever budget he could salvage in the line items’ that were appropriated last year.
But can the SP muster a 2/3 voters to torpedo Lim chances?
Here’s my modest analysis and my pedestrian’s math:
According to the Local Government Code (R.A 7160) “The sangguniang panlungsod, the legislative body of the city, shall be composed of the city vice mayor as presiding officer, the regular sanggunian members, the president of the city chapter of the liga ng mga barangay, the president of the panlungsod na pederasyon ng mga sannguniang kabataan, and the sectoral representatives, as members (Section 457).
As based on the equation including the vice mayor, there are only four oppositions or pro-Lim councillors versus the nine (9) anti- Lim SP members.
If the mayor vetoes, SP overrides it with nine votes to meet the 2/3 requirements.
Does it mean the nine councillors I mentioned have the votes to frustrate the mayor?
My answer is a big no.
Why? Because the Vice Mayor is not included to join the number games as she is only allowed by law to break a tie. So the majority of the dads are short by a single vote to muster the 2/3.
Thus in my math, Benjie operates on a reenacted budget as mandated by the Code vis-a-vis those line items he vetoed.
 Thus, Benjie I presumed (since I ain’t got the records how much those line items compared to their last year’s counterparts) can make a financial coup in this veto’s stunt.
***
Those apologists of the SP were wrong when they told my Hao-Shiao media pals that those councilors who voted (eight (8) of them) on the 2011 City Budget represent already the 2/3 members of the August Body.
These guys should read carefully Section 457of the Code. Where the law does not distinguish, we ought not to distinguish (Ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos dissinguere debemus).
Besides, passing the budget takes only majority votes of seven (7).
If the Vice Mayor insists on the eight (8) to complete the over-ride, she can go to the Regional Trial Court and sue the mayor with Declaratory Relief.
She sues Benjie. Then the Court, if it found cause, restrains through a TRO the implementation of the 2011 budget. As a result the City got no budget this year.
How the city could now operates?
 The mayor runs the City with the 2010 re-enacted budget of P568 as the council scamper to pass a supplemental budget for the increase of the hikes of the employees as mandated by law.
In case this is feasible, who wins the mind game?
(If you have the answer, please post your comment on the hereunder column/blog)
Oh how I loved writing column, it’s more exciting than my mechanical boring job as marginalized fisherman at the river in Brgy. Pantal.
 ((You can read my previous columns at http://dagupenosnews.blogspot.com/ or  contact me at mata_mario@yahoo.com.ph)

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