By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Moises Padilla Vice Mayor Ian Villaflor has lodged a complaint in court after the Sangguniang Bayan (SB) refused to approve his P2.1 million budget for 2024.

Villaflor was seeking the approval of the budget that was supposed to be used for purchasing fuel and salary of the municipal government’s job order and casual employees.

The SB reduced the budget to only P1.

Earlier, Villaflor sought help from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Negros Occidental to resolve the issue.

DILG-NegOcc director Teodora Sumagaysay advised Villaflor to file a complaint before the courts.

Sumagaysay pointed out that Villaflor’s complaint is considered a factual issue, and the DILG does not have adjudicatory power.

The vice mayor was also informed that if there are irregularities, it may be brought to court.

Villaflor said that he made the decision to escalate the matter to court because it was observed that the SB had violated something, and his inquiries were continuously ignored.

He claimed that there were no reasons given for slashing the budget.

The SB approved the proposed 2024 municipal budget amounting to P197,494,794 on second reading in November 2023.

However, on the third and final reading in their regular session on December 6, 2023, the SB decided to slash P2,149,998 from the budget, a move which Villaflor claimed was baseless, based on the SB’s internal rules./DGB, WDJ