By Ermin Garcia Jr.  

 

NEW Year is supposed to mark the beginning of new perspectives, new changes, new ideas and new lifestyles.

I do hope all the sanggunian bayan and panlungsod across the province still share this thought, and consider it as an opportune time to introduce new ways that will improve their image and credibility as legislators and as an institution.

But they don’t have to think hard about where and how to draw ideas from out of the box.

They can start with the consensus to set the new tone by agreeing on proper and official decorum inside the session hall. What to wear when attending regular and special sessions will be a good start..

Agree that the gentlemen should be nothing less than short barong for men and women. Or women to wear smart casual. Absolutely no to  jeans during official sessions!

Why a dress protocol?

The councilors must remember that they were elected to the sanggunian as the people’s representatives! It behooves them to look respectable inside the session hall. After all, they are given the honorific title “Honorable”, aren’t t they?”  Unless, of course, if they choose to continue looking horrific!

Sanggunian members need not look far to have a sense of what can make them look honorable. They should attend one of the sessions of the Sanggunian Panlalawigan. The setting and aura inside the hall seeing all the board members clad in their formal barong and women in semi-formal attires immediately tells one – these are respectable gentlemen and ladies inside the hall.

That decorum instinctively demands proper, decent language dictated by parliamentary proceedings, that require them to address each other as “Your Honor”.

In sharp contrast, the Sanggunian Bayan and Panlungsod members who believe that wearing blue jeans is the standard do not realize that visitors who attend their sessions cannot tell who’s who – between the janitors, bodyguards, maintenance crew and the councilors!

Then there’s the meeting proper during sessions.

The Covid pandemic period necessitated the use of virtual presence, via zoom, Messenger, chatbox, etc.  The councilors thought nothing of recording their presence in their casual clothes outside of the bedrooms and dining tables. Since they can choose how to position their cameras. That was fine then…  nobody cared how they looked.

But the main point today is – the pandemic is over. Our councilors should already be reporting back to the session halls physically.  That is what they were elected for – to physically discuss, debate and agree proposals inside their session halls.

Sanggunians that continue to function legislating ordinances using virtual platforms are violating the basic rule of the legislature as a parliamentary institution. A councilor, representing his/her constituents, must stand physically before his peers to be heard!

Bottom line: Sanggunian bodies should stop meeting like student councils!

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BAD FAITH. Back at the Dagupan sanggunian, the 7epaLiFes are clearly not finished with their destabilizing efforts.

Councilors Red-Erfe Mejia, Alfie Fernandez, Dada Reyna-Macalanda, Celia Chua-Lim, Alvin Coquia, Irene Lim-Acosta and Marilyn Fernandez are bent on making the Belen Fernandez administration operate with a 2023 reenacted budget like they attempted in 2023 (with a 2022 budget) but failed.

They refuse to meet daily as a committee and are adamant about meeting only weekly.  That worked for their agenda to compel the reenactment of a budget.  

In fact, Mayor Belen Fernandez and her City Legal Officer are still naïve to believe that the 7 epaLiFes will heed their directive that committee hearings should be held daily.  Why they don’t seem to have learned their lessons is totally beyond me.

In fact, here’s another lesson that I know that will force the passage of the budget and the supplemental budgets in no time but I know they will refuse to accept.

The judicial precedence offered by the Ombudsman that penalized board members of Quezon province for failing to pass the provincial annual budget is still very much relevant even after City Legal Officer Aurora Valle refused to file complaints vs the 7epaLiFes for refusing to pass the 2023 annual budget of the city.

The indicators are clear that the 7epaLiFes will reenact their failed exploits that initially led to the reenactment of the 2022 budget for the Belen administration.

Here’s the situation. A second ploy to compel the reenactment of 2023 budget to destabilize the city government will convince the Ombudsman that the 7epaLiFes acted in gross bad faith throughout since 2022! 

A case that will be filed against the 7epaLiFes definitely give them their due. They will be suspended for at least six months. But then again, I seriously doubt that Atty. Valle will consider opting to push them to a corner, not with the 2025 elections around the corner. She won’t risk jeopardizing their political future being suspended for not doing their mandated duties. Not today, not tomorrow!

I even seriously doubt that the Belen administration will ever make the officials of the Lim administration account for their  documented irregularities in the grave misuse of the city’s funds.   

Not with Atty. Valle as city legal officer, anyway.

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DPWH, CITY HALL WERE REMISS. Now that the deadlines for the completion of the construction activities for the anti-flooding programs of the city are made public, accountability is finally established.

But why it took the contractors this late to bare their deadlines makes me many wonder. It is a violation of the law that requires contractors to post billboards in construction areas stating definite period and details  for the construction, i.e., name of the contractor, dates when the construction started and when it is to be completed and the  budget for the project.

If these critical information were known earlier, there wouldn’t be any of the  misunderstanding, false interpretations and conclusions and needless criticism of the project but only political grandstanding of the opposition.

Both the city government and the DPWH were remiss in this regard.

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