Monday, April 21, 2008 Liloan stays with us, Durano tells Nerissa By Jujemay G. Awit Sun.Star Staff Reporter
REPRESENTATIVE Nerissa Soon-Ruiz (Cebu, 6th district) spoke too soon when she said that Rep. Ramon “Red” Durano VI (Cebu, 5th) will not object to the proposal of annexing Liloan to two towns to create a new congressional district.
Durano questioned the move, which he sees as a disadvantage.
“The proposal intends for most districts to be divided into two districts, ang fifth kuhaan na nuon,” lamented Durano in a mobile phone interview with Sun.Star Cebu yesterday (The fifth district ends up losing one part of it).
Ruiz raised the possibility of lumping Liloan with its neighboring towns of Consolacion and Cordova to form a separate district.
Consolacion and Cordova currently belong to the sixth district but Ruiz filed House Bill 1306, which seeks to break up the district into three.
The inclusion of Liloan is not in the draft bill but Ruiz said she wanted to present the amendment during the deliberations at the House of Representatives.
Durano said that instead of taking one town from the fifth district, it should have two representatives in Congress, just like the other districts.
Rep. Pablo Garcia (Cebu, 2nd) earlier said that with the increase in the population of the Cities of Talisay and Naga and Minglanilla town, the first district should have two representatives in Congress.
As for his own district, which covers 15 bara-ngays, Garcia also believes that it now deserves to have two representatives in Congress.
He also revealed that his son Rep. Pablo John Garcia (Cebu, 3rd) intends to cut up the third district into two.
One district will be composed of Barili, Pinamungajan, Aloguinsan and Toledo City, while another district will be made up of Balamban, Asturias, Tuburan and Tabuelan, which is from the fourth district.
Both Pablo and Pablo John Garcia believe that with the recent census showing that Cebu Province now has a population of 3.85 million, it is already underrepresented in Congress.
“I agree that all Cebuano congressmen should discuss this and agree on it,” Durano said.
He explained that the proposals for the creation of more districts and how the redistricting should be done needs to be studied.
Sessions at the House of Representatives will resume today.
Cebuano lawmakers are expected to discuss the matter.
Apart from Liloan, there is also a tug-of-war on where the town of Cordova should belong.
Durano raised another problem in the proposal to lump Liloan, Consolacion and Cordova into one district.
“The problem is that Cordova is not contiguous with Liloan and Conso-lacion,” Durano said.
Also, the combined population of the three towns is only 224,798. A congressional district needs to have a minimum population of 250,000
Cordova was eyed to be part of a new district with Lapu-Lapu City, which has since achieved the status of “highly urbanized city.”
Since Lapu-Lapu City doesn’t want the municipality, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña offered to annex it to the city so it will be part of a new district.
But Pablo said the move will have to undergo a process.
“Cordova cannot dissociate from the Province without a plebiscite,” Pablo said.
Since it is under the Province’s territorial jurisdiction, detaching it would be a “diminution” of the Province.
