City Councilor Peter Lavina called on the public to participate in his online poll to express its opinion on what he calls “an important financial matter.”

He said the national government owes the city P142 million from unreleased Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) in 2001 and 2003 due to the reenacted budgets during these two years.

How the local government should get this money is the subject of his internet poll available at his blog (http://ptlavina.wordpress.com).

Should it be by installment for the next seven years? Should City Hall get it now at a reduced amount of only 70 percent? Or should the city borrow from the government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines against this IRA differential? These are some of the options presented in his online survey.

Lavina presided at the City Council special session last Thursday on the matter but the local legislative body failed to decide on it.

He said they would tackle the same issue on July 1, which is also the deadline for the online poll.

Posted last Friday, the poll has eight early respondents with 6 favoring the bank loan and 2 for installment.

Lavina said he uses “blogging,” on the practice of uploading personal text and graphics in the internet, as “a tool for transparency and participatory governance.”