STARTING this year, the Bacolod City government will begin paying the ₱4.441-billion loan (plus interest) incurred during the previous Benitez administration. Take note: debt servicing will continue until 2038.
To meet these obligations, the city has earmarked up to ₱560 million this year for loan payments. This amount includes servicing the ₱1.7-billion loan contracted during the Leonardia administration.
However, allocating ₱560 million annually for debt servicing is expected to significantly affect the city’s more than ₱4-billion annual budget. One cannot help but pity Mayor Greg Gasataya — and even his successor(s) — for inheriting the burden of these massive loans.
Loan is loan. It must be paid.
USED RIGHTLY?
But the real questions are:
* Were these loans used properly?
* Did Bacolodnons truly benefit from them?
I revisited former mayor Albee Benitez’s PowerPoint presentation detailing the projects that were supposed to be funded by the ambitious ₱4.441-billion loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). Thankfully, I still have a copy.
Allow me to recount these projects and narrate their current status.
Based on the list I have kept for nearly three years, the funded projects were supposed to include the following:
* ₱1.5 billion – for land acquisition for development projects in Barangay Granada
Status: ₱971 million has already been spent, but development remains stalled due to pending graft complaints with the Office of the Ombudsman.
* ₱135 million — for the construction of mini-hospitals in five barangays
Status: None. No information available.
* ₱515 million – for the construction of a legislative building with a helipad
Status: Hanging; requires additional funding.
* ₱223 million — for the rehabilitation of the old City Hall
Status: Ongoing, but what is being done is reconstruction—not rehabilitation as stated in the proposal. This project is also facing a pending graft complaint with the Ombudsman.
* ₱47 million – for tree park improvement in Barangay Alangilan
Status: Groundbreaking was held last year, but nothing followed.
* ₱50 million – for pedestrian mall construction
Status: None. No information available.
* ₱525 million – for public market improvement/rehabilitation
Status: Not pursued.
* ₱300 million – for drainage system construction
Status: Unknown.
* ₱50 million – for asphalt overlay of roads
Status: Unclear.
* ₱67.9 million – for city warehouse construction
Status: Unknown.
* ₱30.8 million – for the city engineering motorpool` area
Status: Unclear.
* ₱103 million – for a recovery and recycling complex and ecopark
Status: No update.
* ₱279.3 million – for the purchase of furniture and equipment
Status: No update.
* ₱100 million – for the installation of a solar power generation system
Status: Unclear.
* ₱25 million – for a traffic signalization system
Status: Still unseen.
STRING OF COMPLAINTS
Because of the controversial ₱4.441-billion loan, a string of graft complaints has been filed with the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
In March last year, Bacolod broadcaster Roger Ledesma filed a graft complaint over the city’s purchase of a 74.76-hectare property in Hacienda Conchita, Barangay Granada, reportedly priced at ₱13 million per hectare.
In his complaint, Ledesma alleged overpricing and claimed that the property remained under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). To date, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has distanced itself from the unresolved issue.
In October last year, Ernesto Novo Pineda, the city’s former senior executive assistant, also filed a complaint with the Ombudsman in connection with the controversial reconstruction of the old City Hall at the corner of Luzuriaga and Araneta streets in the downtown area.
Pineda insisted that the more than 50-year-old City Hall should not have been demolished and reconstructed without a clear written permit from the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).
He cited Republic Act No. 10066, or the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, which states that structures at least 50 years old are considered “presumed important cultural properties.”
Built in 1968, the now-demolished 57-year-old edifice was an indelible city landmark. It stood on the historic site where Spanish forces surrendered to Negrense revolutionaries during the “bloodless” Cinco de Noviembre Revolution on November 5, 1898.
BALIGUAT’S COMPLAINT
Still pending with the Ombudsman is another graft complaint involving a ₱2.1-billion loan, this time coursed through a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme for the construction of Bacolod’s smart command system — a project that has yet to materialize.
The complaint was filed by broadcaster Rolly Baliguat, who passed away in June 2025, just a month after filing the case.
As of today, the complaints filed by Ledesma, Pineda, and Baliguat remain active. The Ombudsman has yet to issue any order dismissing them outright.
The lone district representative of Bacolod has dismissed all the complaints as “politically motivated.”
But politically motivated has become a prostituted term, routinely invoked. It is often a lazy, catch-all excuse.
Former mayor Albee Benitez owes it to the people of Bacolod to prove that he has the guts — yes, the balls — to face all these issues head-on./PN
