Commission’s budget moved; Margot miffed

Councilor Margot Osmeña had an unpleasant surprise after reviewing the 2012 budget plan of the mayor’s office yesterday.

The  Cebu City Commission for the Welfare and Protection of Children (CCWPC) that she headed for the past few years has no direct budget.

Instead, the P6 million outlay was transferred to the mayor’s special projects and programs.

“CCWPC is not a special project of the mayor. It is a commission  created through an ordinance. He just can’t transfer that to the special projects,” Margot said.

Since its creation through an ordinance authored by then councilor Manuel Legaspi nine years ago, the commission was listed under the  Office of the Mayor in the budget.

But Cebu City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete, who acknowledged the change,  said there was nothing wrong with transferring the budget to another department.

“The budget is still there. It’s not gone. It’s just transferred. This time, you would see the budget in the past two years and it would appear zero since it was transferred to the right department, the Department of Social Welfare and Services,” Poblete said.

But Margot, who  used to chair the children’s commission as wife of then mayor Tomas Osmeña and is now the head of the council’s budget committee, opposed the plan.

“That only means a lot of bureaucracy. Why would you change something that has been working well for the past years. Why now?  That is my question. Why now?” she asked.

In a separate interview, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said it’s the City Administrator’s job to prepare the budget.

“There are a lot of changes these days. It’s normal,” the mayor said.