No aid for cops not city voters

Only policemen residing and registered to vote in Cebu City will get the P2,500 financial assistance from the city government if the City Council agrees with the decision of Mayor Tomas Osmeña.

It is the council that will stipulate the expenditure in the budget ordinance and the mayor pushed for the change during the council’s budget hearing last Monday. The head of the city’s Peace and Order Program (POP) made the proposal on his behalf.

“Allowances will be given only to those who are residents in the city and who are voters of the city. In the past, they were receiving the assistance even if they are not voters,” program head Kevin Christer Paz told the council.

The mayor’s wife, Councilor Margarita Osmeña, pointed out that even policemen who don’t live or vote here are giving the same service to the city.

But Paz told her, “It is per mayor’s discretion, Madame.”

Councilor Osmeña heads the council’s committee on budget and finance.

To recall, the mayor does not have a good relationship with officials of the Cebu City Police Office and Police Regional Office–7 because the mayor believes that the police may have hand in the series of killings in Metro Cebu.

Budget Officer Marietta Gumia said the restriction will be imposed if the same will be stipulated in the budget ordinance that the Council will approve.

Under the proposed P8.1 billion Annual Budget for 2019, the POP is proposing P65 million for peace and order personnel serving the city and another P2.5 million for the allowance of police personnel assigned in the city's mountain areas.

POP also zeroed the budget for training expenses for the police and the ammunition for military and police.

Paz said that for 2018, the city allocated P5 million for police training and P3.5 million for ammunition for military and police.

Paz said they did not allocate anything for next year because the police have yet to process the release of the budget this year.

Councilor Osmeña said the POP should inform the police formally how the agency can process the release of the city's assistance for this year.

The POP has proposed P10 million for confidential expenses of the mayor, P15 million for the barangay peacekeeping action team, P5 million for the allowance of fiscals, P3 million for the allowance of Public Attorney's Office lawyers, P8 million for firemen serving the city, and P10 million for the judiciary.

Other items include P10 million for antidrug campaign programs and P3.5 million for the purchase of 80 motorcycles for barangay tanods, among others.