January 3, 2025 | 12:26pm
COTABATO CITY — The Cotabato City government will not be able to proceed with its planned projects to boost commerce and trade in its 37 component barangays if the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) rejects its proposed 2025 operational budget.
Cotabato City’s reelectionist mayor, Mohammad Bruce Matabalao, said this during a dialogue with reporters at his office on Thursday, January 1.
Matabalao expressed concern that the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) appeared determined to reject the proposed nearly P2 billion budget for the city’s operations, public service, socio-economic, and peacebuilding programs in 2025.
“It is very likely now that we will have a `reenacted’ budget for 2025,” he said, referring to last year’s city government budget of only about P1.8 billion.
The presiding chairperson of the SP, Vice Mayor Johari Abu, is contesting the reelection bid of Matabalao, first elected as mayor during the 2022 elections.
Matabalao said the SP, whose members are all elected Cotabato City councilors, has unduly been raising what is for him unsubstantiated issues to justify its likely disapproval of the city local government unit’s proposed 2025 budget.
“It’s now January and the proposed budget has not been approved yet, submitted to the city council for its deliberation and imprimatur many weeks ago,” Matabalao, a member of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, told reporters.
Abu, who was Matabalao’s running mate during the 2022 elections, is vying for Cotabato City’s mayoral post as the candidate of the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, also a regional party in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao like the MILF’s UBJP.
Matabalao also refuted insinuations that they have misused the city government’s 2024 budget.
He said the SP is requiring so much justification for the proposed 2025 Cotabato City LGU budget.
“We were hoping for a budget hearing where we can explain the intricacies of our requested 2025 budget but they asked for so many requirements, way beyond what the law requires,” Matabalao said.
Besides extensive public service thrusts, among the projects that the city LGU aims to implement this year, if its proposed 2025 operation budget is approved, is the setting up of a Muslim public cemetery, something past administrations have not established since the creation of Cotabato City in 1959.
Matabalao said they shall welcome intervention by the local government ministry of the Bangsamoro regional government on the now sensational Cotabato City LGU 2025 budget issue.
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