Friday, March 07, 2008 It's business as usual for 'undesirable' vice mayor By Ian Ocampo Flora
ALTHOUGH twice declared as "persona non grata" by other elected officials, Angeles City Vice Mayor Vicenta Vega-Cabigting would not let this affect how she does her job as the presiding officer of the City Council.
Cabigting said city residents would see her working on needed priorities, instead of minding the resolutions by the majority village chiefs and her colleagues at the City Council declaring her as an undesirable person.
Last Tuesday, the City Council here passed the resolution sponsored by Councilor Danilo Lacson declaring Cabigting as persona non grata for her alleged refusal to sign the appointment letters of confidential staff of the majority councilors.
Earlier, the Liga ng mga Barangay (LB) faction of Barangay Cutcut chairman Robin Nepomuceno issued a similar resolution, citing as reason her "alleged disrespect" for Nepomuceno's election as the league's president.
The league's presidency is being claimed both by Nepomuceno and Barangay Pandan chairman Jeremias Alejandrino.
Cabigting said she is resolved to work and keep her focus despite the "political noise."
"The residents of the city could rest assured that I would be working and buckling down on the priorities of the City Council despite all that has happened," she said.
She also questioned the intention of the majority bloc in the council for their move of declaring her a persona non grata. She said a resolution is just a manifestation and not in itself an ordinance.
"Under the law, I'm still the vice mayor of this city and this questionable resolution does not change the fact that the people of this city trusted me to lead," she said.
"After all of this, it is still back to work," she added.
Angeles City has registered many "firsts" in the field of politics in the local and even national level.
It is probably the first city to have two vice mayoral candidates running in the same political camp and campaigning together; the city with two barangay leaders elected as LB president and both sitting as ex-officio member in the council; and most recently, the city whose councils had declared its own presiding officer as persona non grata.
