P91-M Los Baños loan deal questioned

Los Baños Mayor Anthony Genuino (losbanos.gov.ph photo)

A councilor of Los Baños town raised questions on a supposed ordinance that allowed the mayor to borrow P91 million from a bank to finish the construction of a new town hall, describing it as spurious.

Councilor Jay Rolusta said the council never ratified the ordinance allowing Mayor Anthony Genuino, son of former Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) chairman Efraim Genuino who faces a string of criminal charges, to enter into a loan deal with the Land Bank of the Philippines.

Rolusta said the loan deal appeared in the minutes of the March 26 session of the council “when in fact, it was never tackled.”

“It was just inserted,” said the councilor.

The loan deal, Rolusta said, was never taken up in plenary. What several councilors did was to simply sign the minutes of the March 26 meeting and the proposed ordinance. Rolusta and another councilor, Antonio Kalaw, did not sign.

Deception

According to Rolusta, the deception became obvious when he and Kalaw’s names appeared as authors of the ordinance. “I requested that our names be removed because it was just insulting,” said Rolusta.

A copy of the ordinance furnished to the Philippine Daily Inquirer said the P91 million would be used to finish the construction of the new Los Baños municipal hall building along the national highway in Timugan village. The ordinance was a requirement of the bank before it releases the fund.

“Let it be known to Land Bank that if the minutes were falsified, the document is not authentic,” said Rolusta.

He said a public hearing should instead be called to discuss the loan deal.

The construction of the three-story municipal building was a project proposed under the administration of former Los Baños Mayor and now Laguna Vice Governor Caesar Perez. The first two phases of the construction were completed last year with funds from “external sources” or donations.

“If there wasn’t any irregularity, why not go through a plenary or a committee hearing?” Rolusta said.

‘Formality’

In September 2010, the municipal council in a majority vote approved the loan amount of P150 million, of which P95 million would be allotted to finish the third phase of the building and the rest for other projects.

In April 2011, the council issued another resolution authorizing Mayor Genuino to enter into a P91 million loan deal for the building construction.

Councilor Lourdes Principe, one of the ordinance authors, denied any irregularity in the March 26 ordinance, saying it was only a “formality” of previous resolutions.

“How could they say that (the ordinance) was done in haste when it was already approved before,” she said.