BY GILBERY P. BAYORAN
Two weeks after the May 9 elections, the much-delayed approval of the Isabela town proposed budget was finally acted upon by its Sangguniang Bayan, disclosed Mayor Irene Montilla yesterday.
As an afterthought, maybe to save face, they approved the budget last May 25, Montilla, who won the Isabela mayoralty race against her challenger, incumbent Vice Mayor Renato Malabor Jr, said.
The hike in the newly-approved 2022 annual budget of Isabela, in the amount of P267 million, was due to the Mandanas-Garcia ruling of the Supreme Court, is an increase of P60 million compared to P197 million in 2021.
Montilla said they have six months to utilize the budget.
The Department of Interior and Local Government reported that the municipality of Isabela passed the 2021 Good Financial Housekeeping and Upholding Transparency, Accountability and Integrity.
To be able to get the award of good financial housekeeping again, we have to utilize at least 85 percent of the budget, the Isabela mayor said, stressing that they have so many plans and projects for the budget.
Before the May 9 elections, Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson and the Department of Interior and Local Government had called on the Isabela municipal council, which Malabor presides over, to approve the budget.
In her meeting with the municipal government department heads on June 6, Montilla said she told them “To continuously moving (sic), in order to continue our projects.”
Among her priority programs and projects lined up this year is to level up the delivery of basic health services through hiring of more health personnel and purchase of patient rescue vehicles; helping farmers since Isabela is an agricultural town, by buying P7 million worth of farm implements; and strengthening of their Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Counicil, among others; the mayor said.
The son of Montilla, Juan Miguel, is the new vice mayor of Isabela while five of the eight newly-elected councilors of Isabela are affiliated with their political group.
After the 2022 elections, Montilla said she intends to reach out again to the other group, which she did in 2019, although she was snubbed several times. I’m always open about healing, that’s the only way, we can move forward, and united, she stressed.*
