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Thursday, January 29, 2004
Mayor’s veto ‘dangerous incursion’ into council’s prerogative: Piramide
By Gingging A. Campaña
HE CAME into the session hall to attend a public hearing on the proposed amendments to a terminal ordinance, but Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña was just in time for opposition Councilor Carmelita Pi-ramide’s privilege speech on his veto.
All Osmeña could say after listening to Piramide was that the councilor is “only trying to project herself as a martyr in her 15-minute lamentations.”
Piramide said Osmeña did not follow the law when he vetoed the resolution renewing the contract of Jessie Aznar as consultant to her office.
“I honestly believe that the veto wielded by Mayor Osmeña is a dangerous incursion by his honor into the prerogatives of this body. The mayor is not just out to incapacitate me and perhaps, show that he throws a monkey wrench into the individual workings of the members of this council,” Piramide told her colleagues.
Her husband, lawyer and former opposition councilor Avenescio Piramide, also sat on the same bench in the gallery where Osmeña was.
Several drivers, public utility vehicle operators, lawyers and department heads were also in the session hall for a public hearing.
Like battered women
“I would have wanted to suffer in silence, like most battered women do, but in each single second when I reflected on the fate of my resolution, it dawned on me that the collective integrity of this assembly is teetering on the verge of being desecrated,” Piramide said.
Osmeña appeared unperturbed and even dozed off a few times while listening to her.
The mayor earlier said that unless the council formally asks him to submit in writing his reasons, he will not do so.
Section 55 of the Local Government Code requires that a veto must carry the reasons in writing.
Since she got no response from Osmeña, Piramide said she could only surmise that the mayor is picking on her out of personal reasons.
She also cited her submitting an affidavit to the Office of the Ombudsman after Osmeña shouted at former barangay chief Jessie Jayme to get out of his office, her opposition to the lease of the 46 multicabs from Norkis and the purchase of the six Hino dump trucks.
“If it is necessary that I sacrifice my personal comfort in order to fight for the right of each honorable member of this council, no matter lonesome the task may be, I have no choice but to take the heat,” she said.
When Piramide finished her speech, administration Councilor Gabriel Leyson implied that Aznar was not qualified as a consultant.
“What is his educational qualification?” he asked Piramide twice.
The lady councilor replied, “Member Leyson should know because Jessie Aznar was his vice mayoral candidate when he ran for mayor (in 1998 and lost).”
This drew laughter from the members of the council and the gallery and left Leyson speechless.
Justify veto
Despite Piramide’s pleadings for a “collective support” from the legislative body to override Osmeña’s veto, all the council did, upon the motion of Councilor Gerardo Carillo was “to respectfully request the mayor to justify why he exercised such veto.”
Interviewed after Pira-mide’s speech, Osmeña said: “She just thinks it’s nice to get a picture of herself where she is being nailed on the cross so that we will also shed tears for her.”
To this, Piramide, in a separate venue, said, “No, I don’t want to be a martyr. My connotation of a martyr is a dead person. He did not follow the law. That is the issue.”
(January 29, 2004 issue)
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