Evicted at last
LAPU-LAPU City Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan showed he had completed the eviction of Representative Paz Radaza from her “district office” at City Hall, thus ending the stalemate that lasted almost two months. This week, he held a press conference in the office he had ordered boarded up, with the former mayor’s staff no longer occupying a table outside the office (while Ahong’s people occupied another table.)
It wasn’t known if “Cong” Paz would also drop her lawsuit against Chan. But for now, she and her staff have already left the building. The ridiculous spectacle of two public officials, with different jobs and mandates, competing to serve the public is over.
Restoration stopped?
But not the squabble in Cebu City Hall, concerning the stripping of then city mayor Tomas Osmeña’s office. While Tomas never held on to City Hall a minute longer than his term allowed, the gutting of the office fed the appetite for news days and weeks after June 30.
The filing of charges against Tomas and his alleged co-conspirators was not expected to be resolved soon. But the former mayor just provided a twist the public didn’t expect. He has sued before the ombudsman Mayor Edgar Labella and his people, including the city administrator and the city attorney, for usurping official functions and grave misconduct and ethically offensive behavior.
Tomas pursued his earlier theory that City Hall scoffed at: namely, his workers were “restoring” the office when the crew was stopped by Labella’s men.
Labella’s aides allege that the Tomas crew, who started Thursday night, had already left Friday dawn. As the Osmeña work of removal was already complete; there was no restoration work that could be stopped by Labella.
People talk about...
[1] SEN. BONG GO’S ATTACK ON REP. EDCEL LAGMAN’S LOOKS. “There’s no legal basis for helping you have your face fixed. I will be frank with you, your image is beyond repair. Standing against the interests of Filipinos won’t fix your face.” Except for “your image is beyond repair,” Go said all that in Tagalog.
The neophyte senator made the slander in a privileged speech after the veteran lawmaker had raised questions about Go’s Malasakit program. “I didn’t even name you,” said Lagman Bong must believe Malasakit is Go and Go is Malasakit. Public projects, funded with public funds, are supposedly not exempt from scrutiny.
In the old Senate, long past, a senator is routinely sanctioned by the ethics committee for “bastos” language and the offensive remark is struck off the record.
[2] SCHOOL NOTES; NEUTRAL DESKS AND NO HOMEWORK BILL. President Duterte has signed into law the bill that requires schools to provide neutral desks for left-handed students. Republic Act #11394 requires private and public schools to provide desks or armchairs suitable for both right-handed and left-handed students. About 10 percent of the student population are left-handed. Schools have one year to comply with the new law.
Is the president left-handed? Nobody says he is although he said during the 2016 presidential election campaign he was left-leaning.
Senator Grace Poe’s Senate Bill #966 proposes that all primary and secondary schools in the country shall not allow teachers to assign homework to students from Kinder to Grade 12 on weekends. What may be allowed: minimal, not requiring more than four hours to complete. Her purpose? To safeguard the welfare of teachers and students. Besides, the effect of homework on overall student performance is minimal, the bill says.
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