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THE CEBU City Council yesterday passed a measure to tap the city’s calamity funds to allocate “food assistance” to scavengers who helped put out the fire at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill as a reward for their efforts.
The council, however, stipulated that before the funds could be released, certain requirements must be met.
The names of the over 300 scavengers, who helped put out the fire, must be supplied. To be able to tap the calamity fund for this purpose, there must be a certification from the mayor and the Cebu City Disaster Coordinating Council (CCDCC) that the landfill was declared a calamity area.
The measure was proposed by Councilor Gerardo Carillo, action officer of the CCDCC, as a reward to the scavengers for their help. He proposed to allocate P144,000 for this purpose.
But Councilor Rengelle Pelayo said the beneficiaries should be properly identified before the assistance is extended. She also pointed out the lack of calamity area certifications.
The landfill fire, caused by spontaneous combustion according to fire investigators, occurred Friday night. It was put out by fire fighters with the help of scavengers who used buckets to draw water from the nearby Mactan Channel to douse the fire.
Meanwhile, the City Council sent back to the executive department a proposed resolution to authorize Mayor Tomas Osmeña to enter into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Total Philippines Corp.
The council, which sent the proposal back through the Office of the City Administrator, cited that City Hall should first invite other bidders to challenge the proposed agreement with Total.
The city has a contract with Total to supply City Hall with 360,000 liters of diesel fuel every year. The mayor, however, proposed that Total also set up a fuel depot at the South Road Properties from which city vehicles could draw diesel fuel.
City Hall had an agreement with Pilipinas Shell Corp. to supply gasoline fuel to the city through a depot located in the North Reclamation Area, but this contract has expired, with Shell expressing its intention to utilize the depot for the company’s own purposes.
With Shell’s contract over, Osmeña wanted a similar agreement with Total, but Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. first wanted City Administrator Francisco Fernandez, chairman of the city’s bids and awards committee, to invite challengers to offer the city a better deal than the one Osmeña wanted with Total.
