BACOLOD City – Acting Vice Mayor Ricardo Tan wants the Office of the Mayor and the special committee tasked to organize the Bacolod Chicken Inasal Festival to liquidate the P2-million budget for the local celebration.
The festival, which features grilled chicken as “Bacolod’s original,” was celebrated on May 7.
Tan has made an earlier statement questioning the million-peso allocation for the celebration, which aims to promote food tourism in the city.
A total of 3,000 sticks of chicken inasal were grilled on the streets during the festival. Fifty of these were given to street children, guests and local officials. The rest were distributed to residents.
Tan said one stick costs P75, which would mean that 3,000 of these will only cost P225,000 and not P2 million.
He added that his demand for the liquidation will ensure the “prudent use of financial resources of the local government.”
Tan stressed that the Office of the Mayor and the special committee must submit to the Sangguniang Panlungsod the liquidation report “the soonest time possible.”
Moreover, Tan asked the special committee headed by Councilor Cindy Rojas to explain why some local officials – himself included – were not officially invited to the festival.
“Those in-charge of the celebration discriminately failed to invite [me], being the No. 1 councilor [of Bacolod] to the said occasion,” he stressed.
Tan believes that it was an “intentional lapse” that must not be “tolerated because it is tantamount to disrespect to an elected public official who is a member – and at times presiding officer – of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, a co-equal body of the executive department.”/PN
