New leak purports surge of City Hall cash advances before 2023 brgy polls; Klarex campaign says nothing irregular and cries foul

A new leak of data from the Cagayan de Oro City government showed a surge of cash advances drawn weeks before the October 2023 barangay elections.
Teddy Sabuga-a – the city administrator during the time of former Mayor Oscar Moreno – showed reporters May 5 a four-page list of cash advances from July to October 2023 that totaled P208.7 million.
The barangay elections was held October 30 that year.
Sabuga-a said this is alarming considering that poll watchdog Namfrel had conducted a post-evaluation of the local electoral exercise and concluded that vote buying to as much as P6,000 per individual highly occured.
“These revelations raise serious questions about the abuse of public resources, possible
violations of election and anti-graft laws and the erosion of public trust in local governance,” Sabuga-a said. “Unless checked, the same machinery of corruption may once again be weaponized to distort the will of the people and undernine democracy in Cagayan de Oro.”
Along this line, Sabuga-a will be forwarding the leaked data to COA for proper action.
But the camp of reelectionist Mayor Rolando Uy pushed back, saying that the purported expose is unfair to the city government employees named by Sabuga-a as the recipients of the cash advances.
During the presscon, Sabuga-a identified 12 persons as receiving the amount that totaled P649 million.
BenCyrus Ellorin, communications consultant for Uy’s reelection campaign, said that the City Hall employees are only working to hasten the delivery of public services.
“Makita man nimo ang mga particulars – People’s Day, Klarex nga Serbisyo sa Baryo – they are meant to fasttrack sa atong mga serbisyo sa katawhan. Wala man naundang ang serbisyo sa gobyerno maski panahon sa eleksyon,” Ellorin said.
Ellorin further said that the purported cash advances constitute only one percent of the whole budget within the three-year period.
“So 99 percent of the money is drawn from regular procurement. That means City Hall is financially sound,” Ellorin said.