WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE. Councilor Pastor Alcover Jr. for several weeks already has slammed Cebu City’s Night Market in privilege speeches before the City Council and in news media interviews.
And he has been using the word “illegal” each time the issue comes up. He also calls the Night Market the “black market” and its operation that of a “syndicate.”
RELATED: Does Alcover hate things of the night?
So why the caution from Minority Leader Sisinio Andales during its regular session Tuesday, October 13, 2025, which sought to stop Alcover from calling “illegal” the continued operations of the Night Market?
Apparently it wasn’t just a matter of word usage.
Bebs Andales may have tried to protect the persons and group running the Night Market as “third-party organizer” and party-mate Mayor Nestor Archival Sr. who defended the operations and whose view on the issue contradicts Alcover’s.
FIRST, CAN’T ALCOVER USE THE “I” WORD? Councilor Jun, in calling the night operations illegal, appears to have a host of solid reasons, ranging from alleged expired license to operate and questionable authority of the organizer to unapproved expansion of its area of operations and excess of the allowed number of vendors.
Alcover was expressing an opinion, an allegation, based on facts he has gathered. He wasn’t making a ruling or decision. Even the City Council as a body does not decide or declare an act as a crime but surely it can express its view whether violations of contract or ordinance, illegal acts, are being committed.
Any councilor may assail the legality of the Night Market, and in the City Council it is both a right and duty for the city residents the member represents.
“THIS IS NOT A COURT,” Alcover said. “No, it is not,” Andales replied, “that’s why don’t use ‘illegal.’”
Precisely, your honors. It is a legislative body where opinions and allegations are expressed freely, subject only to House rules on discourse. To be sure, the word “illegal” is not prohibited or un-parliamentary in Sanggunian.
Those rules do not ban expression of members’ belief in transactions that violate contract or ordinance and in that sense are “illegal.”
Part of the City Council’s job is to expose alleged wrongdoing in matters involving public funds. A councilor doesn’t await a court decision to express his belief that a transaction is illegal.
HOW IT WORKS. The court will have the chance to rule on legality when, say, after the City Government revokes the license and shuts down the Night Market, its organizers go to court. Or the City Government sues the organizers and the court decides on the legality of its operations and liability of violators.
DIFFERENCE IN VIEWS on the core issue confuses the public. Can the Night Market continue to operate even though the Traffic Management Committee (TMC) resolution allows its operation only from September 5, 2025, to October 5, 2025?
Neither the City Council and Gasa (Garbo Asenso Sumbanan Alyansa sa Gugma, whew) nor the TMC has approved the extension. Thus, Alcover calls its continued operation illegal. The councilor calls it a “blatant disregard of the law and our authority as a legislative body.”
Andales could’ve disputed that by showing that the mayor may legally make the extension of the license, even without the nod of TMC and the City Council. But does the mayor have that authority? The public doesn’t know. The near cat-fight between the two councilors was averted by the usually available recess.
Councilor Bebs didn’t say about the mayor’s power to extend. Mayor Nes still has to comment on the legality of the continued operation of the Night Market. His defense of it has rested mostly on the agreement to operate it through a “third-party organizer.”
IRREGULARITIES ALLEGED BY ALCOVER, relating to rentals and regulations, require a threshing out that an earlier executive session of the City Council failed to resolve.
Obviously one reason for the conflict is that the executive and the legislature are not on the same page about the project. And the mayor and vice mayor are with BOPK while the City Council is dominated by the alliance led by Kusug and Barug, to which Alcover belongs. BOPK is the minority, led by Andales as minority leader.