AT LEAST once a month, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes vetoes an ordinance approved by the City Council, Majority Floor Leader Vic Biaño said.
This has led the council’s majority floor leader to label Mandaue City as “the veto capital of the Philippines” and to accuse the mayor of regularly blocking legislative initiatives.
“Tell us of any initiatives of the mayor that we blocked,” added Biaño, who belongs to the city’s opposition party.
But one of the mayor’s consultants, lawyer Francisco Amit, said the mayor vetoes ordinances only because they are unconstitutional or contrary to existing laws.
He gave Sun.Star Cebu a copy of the ordinances vetoed by the mayor, with the reasons he gave for not signing these passed ordinances.
Biaño made his “veto capital” statement before Cortes’ now-controversial order for all finance officers of the City to disregard a provision in an approved ordinance.
The provision required an enabling resolution to disburse funds.
The City, on Cortes’ orders, went ahead and paid around 1,300 casual or job-order employees who have not received their pay since January this year, without waiting for the council’s resolution.
After all the job-order employees received their pay last March 6, the City Council, headed by Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna, passed a resolution stating they will file a criminal, administrative and civil case against Cortes.
The executive department welcomed the move, saying it will prove, once and for all, that the councilors are wrong.
Majority of the councilors ran on the ticket of mayoral candidate Thadeo Jovito Ouano in the May 2007 elections. Since Cortes’ victory, the relationship between the executive and the opposition-dominated council has been fragile and prone to disagreement.
Among the measures the council approved but which the mayor vetoed were an ordinance creating the position of legislative assistants to the councilors. Another was an ordinance that sought to prohibit children one to 10 years old from riding on or being carried on a bicycle or motorcyle within the city. (OCP)
