When will they grow up?
THE 7 opposition councilors at the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod met their second comeuppance with the 60-day preventive suspension of Councilors Redford Erfe-Mejia, Alipio Serafin Fernandez and Victoria Czarinna Lim-Acosta.
The preventive suspension was issued by the Office of the President based on a petition filed by Vice Mayor Bryan Kua, Councilors Jeslito Seen, Dennis Canto, Marcelino Fernandez and Joshua Bugayong, former chairman of the Sanggunian Kabataan Federation.
The first was the court indictment of the three same councilors in the administrative complaint of “oppression, grave misconduct, abuse of authority, and conduct unbecoming of public officials” filed jointly before the regional trial court by the same complainants: Vice Mayor Kua and the four councilors Seen, Canto, Fernandez and Joshua Bugayong, then as SK chairman.
One would think that with the surprise preventive suspension order, the opposition would already realize that it was their arrogance that led to their disintegration, but no, instead, they topped their arrogance with belligerence.
The remaining four, Councilors Librada Reyna-Macalanda, Celia Chua-Lim, Alvin Coquia and Marilou Fernandez refused to accept the consequence of losing their “majority status” with their definition of a new “majority vote” rule: 2/3 of the active 9 councilors, hence, 7 councilors, not a simple majority vote of 5!
And without regard to basic parliamentary rules, they thought they could claim “no participation” after responding to a roll-call and, then failing to have their “no-participation” status acknowledged, they demanded a roll-call before staging a walkout, believing that would result in the absence of quorum, therefore, no session! They’re nuts!
They were again making rules of their own with no legal basis and expected the new majority of the august body to submit to these. Perhaps, they had reason to believe so because they always got away with it in the past when the old minority members meekly submitted to their “rules”, from the internal rules they crafted to their refusal to pirating of draft ordinances, etc.
Thankfully, the new majority is putting its foot down, albeit still too lenient compared to the old majority’s arrogant stance. Nonetheless, the new majority’s decision to hold two sessions weekly to show how the old majority completely neglected serving their constituents faithfully.
Question: Will the seven councilors asking to be reelected in 2025 ever learn to grow up to be responsible and mature statesmen and stop treating the sanggunian as their playground?
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