A long running controversy dominated the radio program Cuentas Claras over station DYTR the past week, after protagonists took turns in harping the propriety and or impropriety of having the parish bank account placed under the name of its parish priest, Rev. Fr. Victoriano Dagat. With Fr. Dagat on one hand and vocal parishioners on the other, the radio program was inundated with calls coming from the two conflicting sides. The controversy started when Fr. Dagat assumed the parish position last June and there was no stopping from there the animosity between the new priest and former members of the Parish Pastoral Council.

The bone of contention was the bank account which used to be under the name of the old parish priest and some members of the PPC as co-signatories. Following his new assignment, Fr. Dagat dissolved the PPC and transferred the bank account under his name. Citing ecclesiastical concerns, Bishop Leonardo Medroso, D.D., bishop of Tagbilaran, intervened saying that the account should be in the name of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Tagbilaran. The account has since been under this name but the same did not stop irate parishioners from questioning the wisdom of the new bank arrangement. One of the vocal critics of the bank account was Aqulina Penaranda, PPF vice chair, who insisted that the PPC should have a hand in managing the funds,.

Ecclesiastical consideration notwithstanding, the vocal parishioner said the parish official should be transparent in handling church funds. She said not all the money in the bank represented church collections but a product of the parishioners fund raising activities like caroling during the Christmas season. The Loon church fund controversy triggered a criminal complaint filed by at least four parishioners identified as Yolanda Galan, former church cashier, Barangay Captain Alexander Luzon, Penaranda and Councilor Damaso Pasilbas. The complaint was for estafa and or qualified theft and filed against Fr. Dagat. In a resolution. Second Asst. Provincial Prosecutor Eric Ucat, ruled that the subject money contested by the warring groups belonged to Our Lady of Light Parish in Loon. In finding the priest not probably guilty of the crime charged, the inquest prosecutor said there being no appreciable evidence to place respondent in a formal preliminary investigation relative to the charges brought against him by the complainants, the said charges were hereby dismissed. A motion for consideration was filed by complainants was filed by complainants but the same was dismissed for no legal basis.