“I BELIEVE that it is high time that we should review our internal rules so we can spell out the manner and number of councilors who will travel in order to stop the recurrence of what happened last July 25 and August 1.”
This was stressed by Bacolod City Councilor Ricardo Tan in a privilege speech during the regular session at the City Council on Wednesday, August 15.
Tan said he is not against any public official, city councilors in particular, to travel either abroad or around the country.
“I even believe that travelling is a must so that we can see other places’ best practices and adopt, if not replicate, it here in our beloved city. However, I must mention that the July US travel of some of my colleagues is an eye opener for the city,” he said.
He added it leaves an opportunity for them to review and if needed, make adjustments to their internal rules, both in allowing the number of councilors to travel at one time and in defining the term “majority” in cases when some City Council members go on travel abroad or on official leave of absence.
On July 19, Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran and Councilors Caesar Distrito, Em Ang, Dindo Ramos, Cindy Rojas, Renecito Novero and Bartolome Orola were on an official trip to Long Beach, California.
Their trip was criticized after two consecutive weeks with no quorum at the City Council on July 25 and August 1.
Last week, Councilor Ang delivered a privileged speech reporting all their activities and accomplishment in the US.
Tan said there are 14 councilors, 12 are elected and two members are ex-officio coming from the youth and the barangay heads. If they will include the presiding officer, then there are 15 of them in the City Council.
“Our rules says that unless properly moved, we met to discuss matters, big or small, every Wednesday of the week for our regular session. Never before in my long experience as a city councilor that I saw almost half of the members of the City Council leaving the city either on official travel or personal leave of absence,” he said.
He added that on those two regular session dates, the City Council failed to take up important matters.
Tan is also thankful to Ang for expressly saying at the closing part of her speech that they should move forward.
“I fully agree with what she said that indeed, we should move forward, and to quote her, ‘for us to move forward, we need leaders who are less interested in promoting their own interest and their own party and more interested in leaving behind an enduring example and legacy of sincere leadership and service’,” he said.
Tan noted that statement was like saying that leaders who use color coding as a norm of governance, those who divide the people into the mayor’s tribe and the enemies’ tribe, do not have a room in the Bacolod Government Center.
“I fully agree that we need to move on and move forward. To reflect on the incident leading to all this and to punctuate that statement, we could have saved everyone the trouble had Mayor Evelio Leonardia exercised his skill and experience in public service,” he said.
He added: “Prior to his becoming as mayor, he was a former councilor, a former vice mayor, and a former congressman. All those legislative experiences could have equipped him with much-needed skills and experience to know that by allowing his party mates to travel en masse, the danger of having no quorum in the City Council is clear.”
“Enough is enough about this issue. Our people deserve to hear better things. And as I yield and bow to the challenge of Councilor Ang to move on, I yield any interpellation so as to put a stop to all these things,” he added.
For her part, Ang said it was unfortunate that Tan did not agree for an interpellation.
“There was nothing substantial about the matter on our going out of the country or filling of our leave, but it’s more of blaming the city mayor why it happened,” she said.
She added that the internal rule has nothing to do with it because it’s the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) that will determine if they will be allowed to travel or not.
If those two regular session dates are important, Ang disclosed that the City Council could call for a session the following day. (MAP/SunStar Bacolod)