SINCE the last elections, yours truly have refrained from commenting on the rift between Iloilo Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr. and Vice Gov. Rolex T. Suplico so as not to be misconstrued for meddling in what is openly an intra-family spat.

It is public knowledge that the two are uncle and nephew, the governor being the elder brother of the vice governor’s mother.

But as time goes on, it appears that the nephew appears to be mixing up political and personal issues, governance and family matters, and does that even at the expense of provincial employees if not the general public.

Early this year, the nephew as chair of the committee on finance mangled the executive budget submitted by the uncle and came up with two annual budget ordinances that sheared off the budgets for salaries of selected positions and offices, as well as funds for development projects and in the process, dislocating hundreds of casuals and project-hired employees.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in June this year ruled the two ordinances “invalid” in their entirety.

The provincial government at the start insisted and operated on the 2007 budget that it deemed to be reenacted because the 2008 budget ordinances were void and illegal.
The DBM decision upheld the governor and, it may be rightly presumed, black eyed the legislature led by the vice governor.

At least 30 employees, mostly casuals and job hires have been haled by the nephew to the public prosecutor’s office for “malversation”, their “crime”: receiving salaries for their services. According to the complainant the nephew, they conspired with officials responsible for hiring them and releasing their salaries which was “illegal” because their employment had no approval by the sanggunian.

The nephew, a lawyer and product of the country’s premier law school, refuses to see that what Section 77 of the Local Government Code states is that the one needing approval by the sanggunian is not the hiring but the projects for which the casuals were hired.

At any rate, the nephew seems unstoppable in shooting his own foot. Lately, he did it again when he trashed at the committee level the proposed supplemental budget submitted by the uncle.

The supplementary budget consists mainly of the 10 percent salary increase for provincial employees, ordered by Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her May 1 Labor Day speech.

What the nephew does, perhaps, is not shooting his own foot. He’s committing political suicide.

His legal twaddle has no leg to stand on. According to him, had the province operated on the 2008 budget ordinances—which the DBM already had declared invalid—the supplemental budget could have been acted on favorably. But that is not possible and legal now because the local government is operating on the 2007 reenacted budget.

Prices have escalated with frenzying speed since the second quarter of 2007, and basic goods and services are soaring farther from the reach of people, Iloilo provincial employees included.

The 10 percent raise ordered by the President may still be not enough to make both ends meet especially in the aftermath of typhoon “Frank” that further spiked the inflation and sunk the peso deeper, but that is much welcomed.

By blocking the supplemental budget, the nephew is merely giving people more reasons to reject him in 2010.

Many provincial employees now heave that they regret having voted for him in past elections.

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