ILOILO – Sangguniang Panlalawigan’s (SP) appropriations committee chairperson Dorothy Paes has failed to follow the timeline she herself set to wrap up hearings on the provincial government’s proposed P3.7-billion budget for this year.
In the timeline Paes announced in January, the budget hearing would end on March 1. She would then submit a committee report to the SP plenary for the first, second and third readings.
It was on Oct. 12, 2018 yet when Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. submitted to the SP the proposed budget. But because Paes’ committee has been deliberately slow on the hearings, the provincial government is currently operating on a reenacted 2018 budget.
Yesterday, Paes, a barangay captain from the municipality of Dumangas, remained noncommittal on when exactly she would be ending the budget hearings.
Thursday last week, Feb. 28, Paes said her committee was yet to deliberate on the proposed 2019 budgets of some 20 provincial government offices such as the Provincial Administrator’s Office, Provincial Task Force on Road Safety and Task Force on Overloading, and even the budget for the San Joaquin Mother and Child Hospital.
“We are waiting for the utilization reports, breakdown of specific and identifiable projects,” said Paes who, as president of the provincial federation of the Liga ng mga Barangay, sits as ex-officio member in the SP.
Paes was elected to head the appropriations committee in November 2018 in a sudden reorganization of SP committees backed mainly by Provincial Board members allied with gubernatorial candidate Cong. Ferjenel Biron (4th District) who is running against Governor Defensor’s son, Cong. Arthur Defensor Jr. (3rd District).
Since then, hearings on the proposed budget stalled.
Four months prior to the SP reorganization, Paes was supported by Biron during the election of officers of the provincial federation of the Liga ng mga Barangay in July 2018.
Governor Defensor had been urging the SP to “set politics aside” and approve the provincial budget.
“Think not of our individual welfare or the welfare of our political patrons but consider first and foremost the welfare of our people,” Defensor appealed to SP members during his State of the Province Address in December 2018.
According to the governor, he was retiring from politics for good and did not want to leave the provincial capitol “with enmity and animosity with some of you because you have been very supportive of my plans and programs.”/PN
