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Wednesday, March 02, 2005
It won't free'em: Component towns, cities will still be under a Capitol
By Karlon N. Rama
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
The abolition of the Cebu Province will not give Tuburan town its autonomy.
A professor in political law and the Constitution said the abolition will, instead, result in municipalities being merged to form another province.
Barangays within this new province will similarly be grouped together and then be transformed into municipalities.
The municipalities can also be directly annexed to nearby provinces or cities within the region.
“When you abolish a province, you have to replace it because the Constitution dictates that municipalities must be placed under provinces,” explained lawyer Antonio Arellano.
Arellano serves as the Department of Justice (DOJ) Regional State Prosecutor for Central Visayas.
He is a law review author and, at one point, was the country’s representative to the Asian Conference on Comparative Constitutional Issues in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In a resolution passed last Feb. 14, the Tuburan Municipal Council requested Rep. Antonio Yapha to consider an alternative to the bill he filed to divide Cebu into separate provinces.
The western town of Tuburan is in the third district, which Yapha represents in Congress.
Creating another provincial government “only serves to add and promote the continuing or intermittent cycle of political squabble or divisiveness,” read the resolution penned by Municipal Councilor Reyelio Delute.
Constitution
The measure, approved by the council, said the current set-up of having provinces above municipalities is “duplicitous, superfluous and ruinous” because it promotes partisanship.
“You cannot just extinguish a province, not unless you change the Constitution,” Arellano explained.
But if some politicians are still bent on abolishing the Cebu Provincial Government, even if it means having municipalities merged together or made part of nearby provinces, they can begin with a filing a bill within the House of Representatives.
The bill must ask for the repeal of the law that created Cebu Province and, if approved, should then be ratified by a plebiscite.
“In the end, it’s a choice left to the people,” he explained.
Former Cebu governor Pablo Garcia, who is also a constitutional lawyer, was more direct—abolishing the province only paves the way for Tuburan’s annexation to Bohol, perhaps as an appendix to the Chocolate Hills.
“That’s if the Boholanos want Tuburan,” said Garcia, the father of incumbent Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.
“What used to be the municipalities of San Nicolas, Pardo and Mabolo were annexed to Cebu City in the early 1900s,” he explained.
Arellano said that under the present Constitution, the only way for Tuburan to be independent of the Province of Cebu is through “natural growth.”
He explained that if run well, municipalities like Tuburan can develop economically and politically into cities with its own charter.
Development
“It’s like the Province of Rizal. Before, it was so big. Now, it’s getting smaller because of the transformation of its towns into cities. Take Makati or Mandaluyong for example,” he said.
“Naturally, the province disappears because of the consistent development of its municipalities,” he added.
Arellano considers the proposal to either divide or abolish the province a good venue to conduct an “academic study” of whether present political and territorial subdivisions “remain realistic.”
“For instance, is it possible to really do away with a province and exist as autonomous congregation of cities and municipalities where governance is directed by bodies similar to the Metro Manila Development Authority?” he said.
He nevertheless agrees that the proposition to abolish provinces or to divide it into smaller provinces is a complex process that deserves much study and should not be taken lightly.
(March 2, 2005 issue)
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