FIRE, COUNTER-FIRE. Last August 27, 2024, Cebu City Acting Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia announced he’d start preparations for Sinulog 2025 without waiting for the return of preventively suspended mayor Michael Rama. November “might be too late for the organizers,” A.M. Garcia was reported as saying.
Less than a week later, on Monday, September 2, the suspended mayor assailed the preparations without him (Mike), saying in effect that Sinulog Foundation, Inc., not the City Government, shall lead the civic celebration. “Ayaw siya’g patugatugaha,” Mike said, not naiming Raymond but clearly referring to him.
Rama, thus, questioned the authority of A.M. Garcia to direct plans related to the 2025 Sinulog, arguing in effect that SFI is a private organization beyond the reach of the mayor -- unless, of course, the mayor is also the foundation chairman.
Not much different legal dilemma that Rama raised on August 27,2019, when as vice mayor, he branded as outside then mayor Edgardo Labella’s power to create a Sinulog Governing Board that would “oversee, review and approve” all actions of SFI.
BASIC LEGAL QUESTION then, as now, is whether the foundation is part of the City Government, whose activities the city’s chief executive can direct and control. In that skirmish five years ago, the oddity was highlighted. It is raised on the public stage again in the year of 2024 as the community braces for the 2025 celebration.
And it is weird because Sinulog, managed by SFI, a private foundation, is supposed to be a private business and activity. And yet the local government unit actually runs it.
Complications arise when the vice mayor sits as chairman and he and the mayor quarrel on the way of doing things, as Rama and Labella did in 2019 on the creation of the governing board that reviews and screens the SFI’s moves. Or when the mayor is SFI chairman but he’s suspended and the acting mayor is “torpedoing” the evicted mayor’s Sinulog policy, a situation that Rama and Garcia must now find themselves in.
Related story: Seares: Does the mayor have legal authority over Sinulog Foundation, an NGO?
SFI UNDOUBTEDLY NGO. The Sinulog Foundation was registered with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 25, 1984, as an N.G.O. Its official Facebook page also lists SFI as a non-government organization.
WHY THE CITY’S PARTICIPATION. Mayor Rama said at his September 2 press-con that he’s the chairman of SFI.
Cerwin T. Eviota, who heads the city Public Information Office’s news media units -- CCNI or Cebu City News & Information and Sugboanon Channel -- told me Tuesday, September 3, 2024, that Elmer “Jojo” Labella, SFI executive director said, “Mike Rama is the board chairman and Engr. Pericles “Ricky” Dakay is president,” both of whom were “elected by the foundation board.” Eviota said, still attributing the information to Jojo Labella, that “the seated mayor is the overall chairman of the organizing committee in every annual event” because the City Government “provides SFI financial assistance or subsidy for Sinulog activities.”
Thus, Rama is SFI board chairman and at the same time chairman of the organizing committee, that is if Jojo Labella is correct. SM Mike, in trying to stop the acting mayor on “early bird” Sinulog tracks, told news reporters last Monday that Sinulog is SFI’s, asking rhetorically if A.M. Garcia is a member of the foundation. “Kanang Sinulog (gipanag-iya) sa Foundation na. Unya member siya (Raymond) didto? Diba wala. Kinsa may chairman? Ako intawon.”
Which brings up a collateral issue on Rama’s suspension: Does it also suspend him from representing the City as oversight rep, looking after funds it spends for Sinulog? Or is it a right that attaches to SM Mike as a private person, not for his having been elected as mayor?
CITY REPRESENTATION NOT FORMALIZED? It’s not known if the City’s representation in SFI by virtue of its spending for Sinulog activities is authorized by ordinance or executive order. If there is a fiat on that, it has not been publicized.
A city councilor last year told me that the LGU’s money contribution -- mostly in the form of cash prizes -- is not released to SFI but paid out in the name of the prize recipients. Technically, the City doesn’t donate to the foundation but pays directly the people whom SFI has payables to.
How much is the city’s investment in Sinulog? In 2019, it was P25 million; in 2024, the budget was P70 million. How much was actually released though wasn’t made public. What’s certain is that it’s a lot of money and growing each year, not counting funds from advertisers and other contributors. Which must be one reason then mayor Labella in 2019 created a separate governing board to check on the SFI board.
FOUNDATION’S DOUBLE PERSONALITY. SFI’s twin identity -- as a private foundation and yet a city government body and part of the City Hall apparatus -- offers double refuge as well.
The late Labella (he died November 19, 2021, at 70, not finishing his 2019-2022 term) used SFI being a City Hall-controlled entity to create a governing board that would counter-check the foundation led by then VM Rama. Labella’s use of an executive order showed he believed SFI was very much City Hall’s.
Now Rama (still suspended as mayor and outside the corridor of power at City Hall) is using SFI being a private foundation to shoo Garcia away from its activities, arguing in effect that Mike is suspended as city mayor but not as SFI chairman.
BONE THEY FOUGHT OVER. Prime and controversial part of A.M. Garcia’s announcement was that the 2025 Sinulog finale would be held at Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC), not the South Road Properties: “back to the old venue.” Choice of site for the “grand parade” and “ritual showdown” of Cebu’s “mardi gras” was a bone over which opposing forces, to replace the simile of dogs, fought fiercely in preparations for the last Sinulog.
WHAT MAY HELP is a more specific policy, laid down in ordinance, on the city’s participation in Sinulog and SFI, the foundation that runs it. That policy has to be harmonized with the law and rules the Commission on Audit enforces with respect to funds the LGU spends for civic activities such as the Sinulog.