Patronage, Politics, and the PHP 4.5 Billion Question

When politicians draw battle lines over a budget, the first casualties are rarely the ones launching the accusations. The brewing “budget war” in Iloilo City is a textbook case. Beyond the political theater of an opposition vice mayor and a majority-controlled council, there are direct human costs.

The dispute over “job orders” and the CESPEDIC program transforms public service positions into political spoils. This practice, a form of clientelism, keeps contractual workers in a state of perpetual insecurity, their livelihoods dependent on political allegiance rather than public performance. When a politician can allegedly request job orders from the mayor and another cannot, the public payroll is no longer a tool for service; it is a weapon of compliance.

The core of the dispute—the Sangguniang Panlungsod’s (SP) capital outlay being zeroed out while the opposition’s CESPEDIC funds are allegedly withheld—points to a deep structural flaw. The CESPEDIC program itself, a PHP 74.5 million allocation in 2025, appears to function as a local pork barrel.

The critical detail is that the Office of the City Mayor reportedly “handles CESPEDIC utilization, including fund releases, contract approvals, and job order appointments,” even though the funds are for councilors. This arrangement fundamentally undermines the council’s independence and mirrors the very dynamic the Supreme Court sought to dismantle in its landmark 2013 ruling on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

When a councilor must curry favor with the executive for basic services, genuine fiscal oversight becomes impossible. This failure of oversight is cast in an even harsher light by persistent questions over executive assistants in the Mayor’s Office, who reportedly receive hundreds of thousands of pesos monthly for functions that remain nebulous. When austerity is demanded of the legislative branch, such hazy spending in the executive is indefensible.

Now, this dysfunctional dynamic holds the city’s entire proposed PHP 4.5 billion budget for 2026 hostage. The public is left watching a squabble that feels more about power than progress. Councilor Rex Marcus Sarabia, the appropriations chair, has promised an “exhaustive and more transparent” review. This is the moment to prove it.

This spat cannot be resolved in press releases. If Vice Mayor Baronda’s claims of political motivation are valid, she must immediately publish the detailed, itemized requests she submitted for the SP’s capital outlay.

In turn, the Mayor’s Office must provide a clear, data-driven public justification for why the entire legislative branch merits zero capital outlay, and simultaneously, detail the precise, value-for-money functions of its highly-compensated EAs. Stop the “lip service” and let the taxpayers, who fund this budget, see the receipts and decide for themselves who is truly practicing good governance.