• THERESA MAE DULMAN
Several members of the Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod clarified Oct. 27 that the P2.1-billion agreement entered into by the city government with High Data Infrastructure Corp. is a public-private partnership (PPP), and denied claims that the 10-year Build-Transfer-Maintain (BTM) deal constitutes a loan.
The clarification during the SP session came after Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. filed a resolution seeking a review of the contract’s financial utilization, technical viability, and overall project status.
“The city government is also financially obligated to pay a certain amount of money to High Data for services rendered, and these are perceived to be long-term financial obligations, in fact 10 years, reason enough for me to say that it is a service contract loan to be paid by the city every year,” Gamboa said during the session.
But several councilors pushed back against Gamboa’s reference of the deal as a “loan”, emphasizing that the city government has not disbursed a single centavo for the project.
“The author (Gamboa) should validate and show proof to the Sangguniang Panlungsod that, indeed, there has already been funds disbursed to the said company in question,” Councilor Al Victor Espino said.
Councilors Caesar Distrito, Celia Flor, Em Ang, Dindo Ramos, and Jude Thaddeus Sayson clarified the nature of the deal, and denounced online misinformation characterizing the initiative as a city debt.
“This is a contract and, as mentioned by the Committee on Ways and Means, this went through the PPP process,” Flor said, adding she considers the agreement an investment.
Distrito said the BTM agreement between the city government and High Data is not a loan under Republic Act 11966, or the PPP Code of the Philippines.
Rather than adopting Gamboa’s original resolution to review the contract, the SP decided to request a status report from concerned city departments. | TMD
