"My critics are seeing ghosts where there are none."
Thus declared City Mayor Dan Neri Lim in reaction to a paid advertisement sent by the group of lawyer Victor de la Serna casting aspersions to a supplemental budget he submitted to the Sangguniang Panglungsud in its session last Friday.
Drawing analogy of his detractors seeing ghosts although there were none, Lim said his critics should be sure of their facts before engaging in vilification of their enemy.
The budget that amounted to P 40.7 million was sent for SP approval without discussion and support document or S.O.D., this according to the topnotch lawyer.
Belying de la Serna's allegations saying that he was out of touch of legislative processes, Mayor Lim said that the amount requested will pass scrutiny of the proper SP committee. The body where the request will undergo a thorough scrutiny is the committee on appropriation.
According to Mayor Lim, from the proper committee, it will then be submitted to the SP as a whole where it will be subjected for heated deliberation. It will then be approved if the supplemental request is found to be meritorious.
In subjecting de la Serna's tirades vis-a-vis his own pointed reply, Lim minced no words in calling his critic as one who engaged in black propaganda. Lim said de la Serna's actuation is a reflection of his true character.
Saying that de la Serna was at his element when he engaged in deception, he recalled that he doesn't want to be in the league of former governor Rene Relampagos, former senator Ernesto Herrera and the late Venice Borja Agana who were all victims of the lawyer's acerbic tongue.
COMMITTMENT
In giving Lim of de la Serna's piece of mind, the lawyer said one appropriation the mayor asked in the supplemental budget was his commitment of P500,000 to the Bohol Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
According to de la Serna, why is city hall too generous to the group of businessmen?
Other items in the budget request that drove de la Serna's goat were: P6 million honorarium to unidentified persons; P3M for contractual services of unidentified persons; P3M for job orders and launching activities.
On the question of purok and health workers honoraria amounting to P 4 million, Lim said the enabling resolution allowing this allowance was already approved as part of the program of city hall.
OF DEMIGODS GARBAGE MEN
Meanwhile, Mayor Lim was in the warpath again as he went about his weekly radio program in yesterday's edition.
Calling his media critics as demigods and garbage men, he held no bards in castigating them for conduct unbecoming in the practice of the media profession.
While his detractors went to town in lambasting his administration of perceived anomalies, the media demigods found nothing wrong in claming up for the actuation of their own henchmen Lim blurted.
He mentioned as example of the news black out of his media enemy (DYRD and Bohol Chronicle) about the case of its own reporter who was caught stealing the sun glass of a city policeman.
Lim said although Mel Banal, the reporter in question, was shown the door after he was accused of theft, there was no mention of a new story including his caper.
At the same time, Lim took potshots to a news blackout involving a close aide (driver and bodyguard of Senior Police Supt. Edgardo Ingking, provincial director of the Philippine National Police, Bohol Command.
According to Mayor Lim, the suspect identified as Ramon Magoncia was caught red handed in a thief incident at the Bohol Tropics Resort.
Lim recalled that he heard nothing in news reports from the two media enterprise about what Magoncia has done.
But in a check with Col. Ingking, he denied that there was a news blackout about the incident involving his driver-bodyguard. He said the media can check if he did bar anybody from reporting the case to the public.
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