Talisay City: Of poverty and politics

CEBU, Philippines - Talisay City may be having an annual budget of more than half a billion, but a lot of its 200,772 residents (as of 2010 census) are still living within – even below – the poverty threshold.

In Sitio Rattan, Barangay Tanke, Mila Mabanto, 54, shares a small shanty with the last four of her surviving children. She had 10 children, but six of them died due to illnesses associated with malnutrition during childhood.

The widow, albeit thin and frail, has single-handedly raised her remaining children by selling snacks or running errands for neighbors for a fee.

When The FREEMAN visited her in her shanty draped with used tarpaulins and empty rice sacks which serve as its walling, Mabanto was tending to her small "sari-sari" store, which at that time, only had a few boxes of "hopia" and two packs of toasted bread on display.

When talking to her, one has to shout, as according to her neighbor Olivia Tambasen, Mabanto's hearing has deteriorated reportedly due to lack of nutrition in her body.

"Di makakaon og insakto uy. Usahay among pamahaw, paniudto na. Ang panihapon, kung makalung-ag, lawom na sa gabii ig abot sa akong anak gikan nang-manicure," she said.

Mabanto's son also augments the family's income by selling water to neighbors.

But when the two bread winners in the family don't bring enough for them, she said she would send her small grandchildren to her neighbors to ask for rice, never mind if there is nothing to pair it with.

Mabanto said she would be happy when there are mass feeding activities in their area, and that's when she would bring her grandchildren – one of them suffering from skin rashes – to line up for free porridge.

SLASHED BUDGET

For this year, the city government under the leadership of Mayor Johnny V. De los Reyes has proposed a P1,070,000 budget for the City Health Office's "maintenance and other operating expenses"  and another P1 million for the "maintenance and operating expenses."

But these two were each reduced by the City Council to P100,000.

The proposed budgets were supposedly for the medical needs of the city's poor constituents, said De los Reyes, but with the P100,000 allocation that the council had approved, he wondered what assistance the city could give to its people with that amount.

Based on the 2013 Operation Timbang results of the National Nutrition Council,  Talisay City had 377 pre-schoolers (zero to 59 months old) who were underweight while 178 were "severely underweight."

There were 26,004 children in the city who were weighed for this survey.

In 2008, under the term of former mayor Socrates Fernandez, the city topped among all the cities in Central Visayas for having the most malnourished children.

Fernandez, now a councilor, is among the nine members of the City Council who voted to cut into half the city's budget for this year. He was joined by councilors Edward Alesna, Francis Aznar, Aldin Diaz, Doroteo Emit, Eduardo Gullas III, Raul Cabanero, Danilo Caballero, Antonio Bacaltos Jr. and presiding officer and vice mayor Romeo Villarante.

In addition to slashing the budget for the city's medical necessities, the council has also downsized Rural Health Unit budget of P3.4 million to P100,000.

De los Reyes said 2015 is "The Year of the Poor," and part of the city's Annual Investment Plan is to purchase medical equipment like X-ray, ultrasound, 2D echo, CT scan, and dialysis machine wherein the poor people may avail of for free.

The mayor said he had thought of the project so the patients don't need to run to Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City or to any private medical laboratories to avail of their laboratory services.

Again with that budget, the mayor doubts if that plan would be materialized.

De los Reyes said the people's health is among his "top priorities" especially that the common reason the indigent Talisaynons go to his office and residence is to seek medical help.

"Mohatag ko sa akong personal (funds) pero di gyud na paigo kay daghan ang moduol nato para mangayo og tabang medical," he said.

The City Social Welfare and Development Office was also not spared: it's P19.4 million proposed MOOE was reduced to P9.6 million.

This budget is for the office's regular operations like transporting of patients from the City Hall to the nearest hospital, payments of hospital bills, purchase of relief goods during calamities and emergencies, and others.

The council also cut CWDO's budget for medical assistance and hospital subsidy from P8 million to P4 million, its "Emergency Shelter Assistance" from P2 million to P1 million, the assistance for "individuals in crisis situation" from P1.5 million to P750,000, the "botica for the indigents" from P2 million to P1 million, among others.

CSWO head Felipa Solana said this is the first time in her stint as head of the same office that their budget was chopped. She was chief of said office since 2001.

Solana said the amount proposed in each item was based from their data gathered from the number of indigents they serve every day. They had increased it with a little percentage considering that each year the number of people who go to their office for help is also increasing.

She said everyday, at least 30 individuals ask for burial assistance, medical support, payment for hospital bills funding and others.

She said the slashing will "not sustain" their operations for the rest of the year, because based on their past years' experiences, the allocated budget has  always been spent almost entirely by the end of the year.

"Last year, naigo (ang budget) until the end of the year. Kung mao nang budget karon, di gyud na maka-sustain kay 50 percent ra man (sa proposed)," she said.

But with the council's decision, Solana said they will just have to make do with what is given to their department and would later on worry if their funds will run dry.

Her office grants P3,000 in burial assistance or hospital subsidy, and P1,500 to other medical needs, depending on the situation, she said.

Solana said with the budget cut, she could not implement a reduction of the subsidies, since as it is, it could not pay entirely the hospital bills or the expenses incurred in burying an indigent Talisaynon.

With the problems of Tanke and other barangays still suffering from utter poverty, they will continue their supplemental feeding programs and provide skills training to the parents there.

"Makapadayun gihapon ta'g deliver sa mga program (despite the budget cuts)," she said.

From the P1 billion proposed budget, the Alayon Party-dominated council green-lighted only P539 million for all the city’s operations.

In its defense, the council said the reductions actually just totaled over P200 million, and not P500 million. This is because part of Mayor JVR's proposed budget included an appropriation for the building of new Tabunok market amounting to P350 million, something the council openly slashed because it has not given the mayor authority to enter into a loan with a bank for that purpose in the first place.

The council also contends that despite the budget cuts this year, the overall 2015 budget of P539 million remained higher than last year's budget of P516 million.

The council also said the mayor's administration failed to "justify" some of the proposed appropriations, and so the council had no choice but to drop them off the year's budget.

Denying the allegations, De los Reyes, a known philanthropist before he was elected into any office for the first time in 2013, said what the council did was to cripple his administration.

Amid the controversies surrounding the city's annual budget, De los Reyes was chanced upon by The Freeman distributing some biscuits and juice to the indigent children in the area.

"Challenge gyud kaayo ning tuiga, pero kung unsay atong mahimo ana nga budget, atong himuon. Bahala na'g magkamang ta. Pakamangon man kaha gyud ta nila," said the mayor in reference to his council.

MILLIONAIRES

And while Mila and the other poor residents of Talisay City are still living in extreme poverty with very little hope that their government would extend assistance to them, majority of the members of the council are millionaires.

Based on the 2014 Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, seven of the 10 members of the councils are worth millions. The richest was Association of Barangay Councils president Raul Caballero with a net worth of P6.5 million, followed by Councilor Emit with P5.7 million.

Alesna and Villarante were worth P5 million and P4.1 million, respectively. Caballero had P3.4 million net worth, Aznar declared a P2.3 million net worth and Diaz P2 million.

It is often said that the hallmark of a true democracy is that it is a government "of the people, by the people and for the people." For Mabanto and all the rest of impoverished Talisaynons and Filipinos, the statement simply rings hollow. /JMD (FREEMAN)