Council okays Alvin, Cuenco consultancy

A former congressman and a former mayor of Cebu City were among the 23 persons whose appointments as consultants were approved by the City Council in their session yesterday morning.

Former mayor Alvin Garcia will serve as Mayor Michael Rama’s consultant for waterfront development while former congressman Antonio Cuenco will serve as consultant on the city’s sister cities affairs. Each will receive P18,000 as consultants. Their contracts will expire on Dec. 31.

Garcia was mayor from 1995 to 2001 while Cuenco served in Congress between 1965 to 2010.

With the exception of Lynn Gloria Madrona, traffic consultant to the Cebu City Integrated Traffic Operations Management (Citom), the 22 other consultants under the mayor’s office will receive P18,000 a month.

Madrona will receive P15,000 a month. Of the mayor’s 23 consultants, six of them are newly-hired while the others were renewed.

Among the consultancy contracts approved by the City Council are Antonio Avila for broadcast and media affairs, former Labangon barangay captain Felix Abella for environment concerns and land use management.

Two other new advisors were Faiyh Sabanpan Ponte for website systems and information technology, and Ida Yting for scholarship program.

Appropriation

Those whose contracts were renewed were Angel Espiritu, former regional director of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as protocol and consular affairs, Dr. Librado Macaraya for parks and playgrounds commission and former councilor Arsenio Pacaña for tourism and heritage concerns and religious affairs.

Also hired were former councilor Franklyn Seno for hilly land management, Cerwin Evoita for development communications and training and Cebuano historian Dionisio Sy for Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission.

A P6 million appropriation was included in the 2013 budget for the hiring of the city’s consultancy needs.

The city didn’t hire any consultants during the first six months since the executive and legislative departments had to work out the appropriation.

The council also approved the hiring of seven new consultants for the legislative department and the renewal of 11 consultants for re-elected councilors.

New consultants will be working for the seven newly-elected councilors.

Councilor Mary Ann delos Santos will have lawyer Aven Piramide as her consultant while Councilor Hanz Abella employed lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo.

Unlike the mayor’s consultants, legislative consultants will be paid only P9,000 a month.

Councilor Gerardo Carillo asked former councilor Jose Daluz III who was in the gallery to relay to Mayor Rama the council’s desire to include funds in the 2014 executive budget for the payment of a uniform fee to all City Hall consultants.

Councilor Eugenio Gabuya asked for the basis in determining the consultants’ fee.

He said he has a draft ordinance that will fix the rate of government consultants. The council agreed to refer Gabuya’s query to the budget committee. Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac