By Leonardo Micua

 

ON February 14, members of the majority in the Dagupan Sangguniang Panglungsod, except one, wore red in tune with the spirit of Valentine’s Day.

That would have been just fine as many others wore red that day. Many thought with red as the dominant color of the day, love was up in the air.

But wrong.  The majority councilors in that chamber had a dark agenda at the back of their mind to effect, in accordance with their own game plan.

That was to expunge or obliterate from the records the entire minutes of the session last February 7 where Mayor Belen Fernandez spoke lengthily before them as if the session that day did not happen at all.

They did this by simply using their magic wand, capitalizing on their sheer number— two councilors more than the five-man minority. In just a second of abracadabra, the minutes of that session vanished into thin air. What a gall?

That was definitely one for the book. And this will be recorded as the stupidest move ever taken by the group in the exercise of the tyranny of the majority.

Their predecessors in that chamber, honored till this day because of the indelible mark they left in the area of local legislation, must now be turning in their graves, shameful of this unprecedented move taken by present-day Dagupan legislators.

No other legislative bodies in Dagupan and elsewhere in the Philippines and the world was as stupid as them in committing the pitfall of erasing the entire minutes of a public proceeding.

Okay, they all walked out after a motion to adjourn was made and after it was seconded. This after hearing no ruling from the chair. However, the chair heard an objection from the minority and so, allowed them to state their objection.

That was the time the majority councilors were  already exiting from the session hall and no amount of argument could make them change their minds. Remember, the cameras were still recording at that time… and never stopped.

So to make it appear that none whatsoever was uttered in that session that lasted more than three hours must go down in history as a kind of mental dishonesty and worst a product of a sick mind.

Such tactic is an old hat. It can be a grand design to further humiliate Mayor Fernandez, hurt her administration and they believe that when she can no longer endure the pain being blamed by her constituents, she would come to them on bended knees. When she does, it’d be the time for them to dictate their terms before passing the budget.

That is like wishing for the blue moon to come and this will never happen.

As for the deletion of the entire minutes of the February 7 session, I am sure some legal eagles in the city, including those from the office of Mayor Fernandez, may now be entertaining the idea of filing a test case before the courts or the DILG  if the majority councilors are not liable under the law of erasing the entire minutes of a public proceeding.

That could be an interesting case If it happens.

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