IMMEDIATELY after he took his oath of office, Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said he preferred that all councilors will get committee chairmanships regardless of their political affiliations. Unfortunately, his partymates may not have gotten the message. When they parceled out the committees the other day, not a single one went to the newly elected BOPK councilors.
What the new majority bloc did was of course nothing new. Labella himself witnessed, as the Council’s presiding officer, how the BOPK stripped his partymates of all committee chairmanships almost three years ago when then Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s allies gained the upper hand in the City’s legislature through the defection of three Barug councilors. Now, the tables have turned. To be vulgar about it, weather-weather lang.
Still, I was hoping that with the defeat of Osmeña, we would see the emergence of a new kind of politics, one that hews to the announced “inclusive” governance of Labella than to the politics of vindictiveness associated with the BOPK leader. I may have to revisit my expectations.
When Osmeña was asked on radio why he cannibalized the mayor’s office before stepping down, he mentioned that he wanted his successor to feel what he felt when the Labella-led City Council refused to grant his request for funding for the renovation of his office. The explanation reeked of vindictiveness. Sadly, so does the decision of the new majority to starve the minority of committees to head. Feel what we felt some three years ago, that is their message.
So now Rama heads four committees aside from being the presiding officer of the Council. It’s not unprecedented, he said, and it is allowed by law. Majority Floor Leader Raymond Garcia also has four, while most of the others have at least two each. Even with the expected return of Joel Garganera, there would still be enough committees to accommodate all councilors as Labella had wished. But his friends are not willing to share and that’s too bad.
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Junard Chan scored the biggest upset so far in the political history of Lapu-Lapu in beating Arturo Radaza last May 13. A former congressman and city mayor, Arturo is also the husband of Paz who bowed out as mayor last Sunday after serving out the constitutional limit of three consecutive terms. She is now the city’s representative in Congress.
Even if she is no longer the mayor and her husband failed in his bid to replace her, Paz is apparently not ready to move out of the City Hall building. Twenty four days before her term expired, the Lapu-Lapu City Council, who could have only been acting upon Paz’s orders, passed an ordinance granting her, as congresswoman, an office in City Hall.
Chan wants to eject Paz, but it is doubtful if he can do that without first amending or repealing the ordinance. The Council remains dominated by Radaza’s allies, so securing the amendment or repeal appears to be a tall order.
The winner does not always take it all.