Over P100M Baguio City infra projects funds returned to national treasury

BAGUIO CITY —  More than P100 million funds for supposed Baguio City infrastructure projects are being reverted back to the national treasury due to the violations in the implementation of these projects.

During a special session of the Baguio City Council on Thursday, it was revealed that the City Government of Baguio has to return more than P100 million acquired through the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-Cordillera.

Citing the General Appropriations Act (GAA), the amount should be returned after the Commission on Audit (COA) and the DPWH discovered various violations including fund utilization.

These infrastructure projects include the Youth Center in the Baguio Athletic Bowl where DPWH provided a counterpart fund of P50 million. In its 2022 audit report, COA, however, disallowed the initial release of P25 million of the full budget after discovering that the city government did not properly disburse the funding it had acquired from the DPWH.

Because of this, the DPWH did not release the second trance of P25 million, thus the city government must return P25 million to the national coffers.

Baguio City is also returning funds for the multi-purpose building at Wright Park with a P29.4 million funding and the basic infrastructure program (BIP) for the construction of a supposed to be multi-purpose hall in Lualhati Barangay with P49.5 million fund.  These are part of the regular infrastructure program of the DPWH for 2022 downloaded to the Baguio City government. 

The two projects, where P40 million were earlier downloaded to the city government, were included in the Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Alleviating Gaps (SIPAG) initiative. 

Enraged Baguio City Councilor Mylen Yaranon blamed the insistence of the Baguio City government in handling the bidding and implementation of infrastructure projects, but ending up returning the funds because of violations.

She claimed that the city government have not trusted the winning bidding contractors of the Baguio City District Engineering Office (DPWH-BCDEO) and had insisted that the local government unit will be the one to look for contractors. 

"Always complaining [about the] alleged substandard outputs of the projects of the contractors who bid with the DPWH," Yaranon said.

"The outcome of the projects handled by the city government is no different from the projects the city administration was questioning because of many violations," she added.

Baguio Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda, on the other hand, stressed that someone should be held accountable for the return of the funds.

“Instead of the city having big savings from having infrastructure projects because of financial assistance from the national government, Baguio is now in hot [water] because of the poor standard outputs of the contractors the city government had transacted with and the very poor monitoring and supervision of concerned agencies of the city government," she said.

Tabanda also said that the LGU should go after the contractors and let them pay.