Rico pushes 2nd eng’g district office upgrade

Rep. Aumentado

By JUNE S. BLANCO

PLANS to upgrade the Bohol 2nd Engineering Sub-District Office go into high gear this year as the Committee on Public Works and Highways has submitted to the Senate its committee report recommending approval of the proposal, with amendment.

Rep. Erico Aumentado (2nd District, Bohol) co-sponsored the report with Rep. Ronald Cosalan (Lone District, Benguet), committee chair.

House Bill 386 originally proposed the funding for the operationalization of the office to be included in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of the year following its enactment into law.

The proposed amendment provides that the public works and highways secretary shall immediately include in the department’s program the operationalization of the office, with funding to be charged against the current year’s appropriation of the Bohol 2nd sub-district office. The amount necessary for the continued operation of the same shall be included in the following year’s GAA.

Rep. Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya (1st District, Cavite), chair of the committee on appropriations to which the Aumentado bill was also referred earlier informed the Cosalan committee of the proposed amendment.

The full-fledged district office will still cover the 14 towns of the 2nd district – Pres. Garcia, Ubay, Bien Unido, Trinidad, Talibon, Getafe, Buenavista, Inabanga, Clarin, Sagbayan, San Isidro, Dagohoy, Danao and San Miguel – around one-third of Bohol’s land area. It is maintaining 209.931 kilometers of national roads and 1,525.4 linear meters of bridges.

The sub-district office located in Ubay currently has a staff of 94 personnel including the district engineer and his assistant and some redeployed from the 1st and the 3rd engineering districts stationed in Tagbilaran  City and Guindulman town respectively.

In the bill’s explanatory note, there will be no need for creating new positions except those of the district engineer and assistant, and administrative and personnel officers whose salaries will be charged to the items for the present positions of redeployed employees, subject to be upgraded to the level of the salary grades/positions proposed in the new plantilla of personnel.

This means, Aumentado explained, the amount to be appropriated would be considerably minimal as the redeployed employees can draw their salaries from their present positions plus the upgrading of their positions/salaries as may be necessary.