IN the published mid-September opinion poll of Edge Davao designed to find out how city residents rate the performance of Ms Sara Duterte-Carpio in her first 14 months as mayor, many Dabawenyos lauded her for “honesty” and such synonymous traits as “transparency” and “sincerity” in dealing with people.
She showed a similar candidness in her State of the City Address before the City Council last Tuesday, when she admitted failure to realize four promises she made in her first Soca. Her defenders were quick to point out they were not exactly failures, but reasonable delays. The promised PhilHealth accreditation of district health centers is a work in progress, while the planned pasalubong center could not be implemented because the Department of Education, the current occupant of the space, has not yet vacated the area. On the other hand, the planned new city public library cannot yet be built because the site is going to be used as a temporary office while a city hall annex building is still under construction. Finally, instead of privatizing the hauling and segregation of garbage as earlier promised, the city government is considering a better option involving an environment-friendly technology guaranteed to multiply the usefulness of the city’s multi-million sanitary landfill in Tugbok. Whatever, the mayor rattled off an impressive list of achievements in the Soca, a reason applause interrupted her speech at least a dozen times.
Actually, the greatest challenge that Inday Sara’s administration faces is the forced reduction in the city’s budget in 2012.
According to regional director Achilles Gerard Bravo of the Department of Budget and Management, Davao City’s share from the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) will decrease by P360 million next year. This is brought about by two factors –the creation of 16 more cities in addition to the original 122 and the reduction in the country’s internal revenue collections in 2009.
Despite the huge reduction in income, covered by Memorandum No. 65 and Memorandum No. 65-A of the DBM, Inday Sara has vowed not to retrench workers of the city, admitting, however, that cost-cutting will have to be resorted to. How the lady mayor will steer the city in the remainder of her term in the face of a financial double whammy will depend largely on her strength and creativity as a leader. Yes, managing the third biggest metropolis in the country with such a daunting handicap is yet another acid test in the mayor’s young political career.
The loss of Davao and the 121 other old cities of the country is the gain of Mati and the 15 other new cities. From a low P88 million of annual IRA as a municipality, Mati will be entitled next year to a staggering P496 million. That’s more than ‘10 little crazy boys can count in 10 years’, to resurrect a cliche. Levity aside, the bonanza is in a way a big challenge to Mati City Mayor Michelle Rabat. It is an opportunity for her to show her mettle as a fiscal manager. Her constituents will be watching with more than passing attention how she will allocate this mind-boggling resource and artfully marshal the concurrence and cooperation of the city council. We hate to appear like a killjoy, but it is quite possible that some corrupt elements in and out of Mati’s political ecosystem are salivating at the unprecedented manna and are already scheming at how they could dip their dirty fingers in the cookie jar. Indeed, managing the fund could make or unmake Ms Rabat as a leader.
