ALL past talk -- heated speeches at the Cebu City Council, repetitive utterances in the media -- about the “Mayor of the Night” finally led to Mayor Nestor Archival Sr.’s executive order (EO).
Does it address “legal and constitutional” as well as “practical” objections of Kusug councilor, Pastor Alcover Jr.?
Mayor of the Night, Kons “Jun” warned a number of times in and out of the Sanggunian session hall that Cebu City would have two mayors, one for the day and another for the night. Which Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña himself may have encouraged by his comment that once Mayor Archival is asleep, there must be another mayor, logically the VM.
Immediate takeaways:
[1] WHAT EO 27 CREATES: A SERVICE CENTER. The EO calls it “Cebu City Government 24/7 Service (Mayor of the Night).” It will be a one-stop shop service center for residents, business process outsourcing or BPO workers who find it difficult to access City Government services during daytime.
Specified in the EO as participating offices are the agencies that receive payments, issue permits and licenses, provide health and civil registrar services, involving documents such as cedulas, business applications, health cards and birth/death certifications.
Also “invited” are national agencies such as SSS, Pag-ibig, LTO, Statistics Authority and the police.
[2] VM WON’T BE MAYOR BUT OVERSEER, COORDINATOR. The EO, in section 6, designates the vice mayor “to oversee implementation” of the program “under the control and authority of the mayor.” The vice mayor shall “coordinate with relevant offices and agencies to ensure efficiency and compliance.”
That provision appears to meet head-on the issue of a second mayor or alternating mayor, which is, the VM becoming acting mayor at night when Mayor Nes sleeps.
[3] ‘UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE MAYOR' may justify decisions of the Night Mayor, the same way actions done by the executive secretary for the President are justified.
Well, not quite. Lawyers may point out the flaw in the comparison. The executive secretary and the President belong to the same department (executive) and same office (office of the President). The vice mayor belongs to the legislative department while the mayor heads the executive department. (Yes, both belong to the same party, BOPK, but what if they didn’t, but that’s another issue.)
[4] TOMAS DID IT BEFORE, WITH DEPUTY MAYORS. Then mayor Tomas Osmeña, during his 2016-2019 term, appointed, on July 1, 2016, six councilors, including his wife Margot, as deputy mayors, then later in the year two more who had defected from the rival party Team Rama.
Each deputy mayor at the time was given a specific area of concern -- such as health, education, infrastructures, etc. -- with “blanket authority” to review proposals or decisions of departments and office before he’d act on them.
The legal justification then -- as it seems to be now, under Archival with respect to the VM’s case -- was that the councilors acted or would act “under the authority and control” of the mayor.
A complaint filed by a former NBI director with the Ombudsman against the deputy mayors, including the legality of their title, failed to stop the practice (at least there was no report about its outcome).
[5] THEY WERE ‘DEPUTY,’ NOT ANOTHER MAYOR. One may point out that then mayor Osmeña's deputy mayors were deputies, not like in the current controversy where the title of another mayor is allowed to be used.
“Deputy” sufficed then but “of the Night” does not, to describe in limiting an extra mayor’s powers?
Apparently not, at least not to Kons Jun Alcover and other Tomas Osmeña non-fans.
[6] USE OF ‘MAYOR OF THE NIGHT’ IN EO DIDN’T HELP in not fueling suspicion that the vice mayor wants to do the mayor’s job, at least partly.
Why not just call it “Cebu City Government 24/7 Service Center”? Because, stupid, the name has already gained traction, fame or notoriety. First introduced in the 2025 election campaign chiefly by VM Tomas himself, it became more than a campaign promise. It must have become an obsession borne out of the national success of the 24/7 city library service.
“Mayor of the Night” may turn out to be more than a political gimmick. It could put Cebu City again on the national stage.
[7] OR IT COULD TURN OUT TO BE WHAT ALCOVER FEARS, a waste of money, duplication, if not deception. The EO doesn’t cite verified statistics to support these claims:
“The City never sleeps.” Or more precisely, the City Government never sleeps. Ah, but New York City Hall--in New York, New York where that line began--is closed at Saturdays and Sundays and opens weekdays, but only from 9 a.m. to 5 pm. New York City has an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 permanent night-shift workers, as of August 2025.
Thousands of night workers, yes, but how many and how often do they actually need a license or permit, a health card, or something from the SSS or GSIS?
Mayor Nes, an engineer and resident critic at the City Council for several years, must have a sharp sense to check and verify.
How many clients from 5 p.m., night until dawn, would the service center have? How much would it cost? His EO calls it a “pilot” (printed in bold), going beyond two years but not more than the elected officials’ three-year term.
Meaning, let Tomas get what he wants and we’ll see what happens.