[] Both omissions were brought to light within the City Council:
-- In February 5, 2025 session, by Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos, who found attachments to the request too complicated and too long, which she presumed "not even one member had read" all the pages.
-- On January 6, 2021, by then vice mayor Mike Rama, who stepped down as presiding officer to tell councilors in their faces that "most" (charitable euphemism for "all") had not read the voluminous JVA or joint venture agreement they were discussing, which they approved anyway but had to correct several sessions after.
THE PROBLEM apparently arose from the manner the exemptions are being requested. Councilor Rey Gealon's attachments detail specific items in the annual budget for 2025 that the Cebu City Council requests to be exempted from the Comelec ban on spending or using government funds.
Majority Floor Leader Jocelyn Pesquera's saw an over-breadth: the period to implement the projects covers only from March 28, 2025 to May 12, 2025 and yet the amount of disbursement specified by Gealon covers the budget for the entire year. She proposed to amend each item so as to specify only the amount needed for the projects during the 3/28-to-5/12, or 45-day, period. And Pesquera did, item per item, slashing amounts and questioning sources.
But when Councilor Pesquera asked when one item (#6, on social pension) could be found, Gealon said there's no way he could specifically identify its category in the budget but he'd defer to Councilor Noel Wenceslao, chairman of committee on budget and finance.
Councilor Franklyn Ong, representing the Association of Barangay Councils, also cited as non-existing in the city budget an item of P49 million for DSWD; it's in the national budget, Ong said, not in the city budget.
VERY COMPLICATED, said Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos of BOPK, rating the process adopted by Gealon: "i-spell out, rather than ing-anion nato."
The supporting papers are "very voluminous," she said. "I presume that not even one member has read all these 114 pages."
Which may recall a similar accusation against the city councilors when in 2021, then vice mayor Mike Rama, seeking to defer approval of the joint venture agreement on Carbon modernization, told the councilors they hadn't read the 75-page contract.
We don't have the "luxury of time," she said. "The chances are 'dili nato ma-istudyohan og tarong.'" She wanted it "simplified" into a list of services the City must continue to provide even during the election ban.
IT'S WHAT COMELEC ORDERS? 'NOT SO.' Atty. Gealon, chairman of the committee on laws, disagreed with de los Santos, saying it's what Comelec Resolution #11060 provides.
On "scrutinizing" the budget items, Gealon said they were already scrutinized during the budget hearings. We're only asking for exemption, he said. Regarding the fast-tracking without scrutiny, Gealon said this is the process and we're only asking for the services prepared by department heads during the budget hearings.
The template under the Comelec resolution has not been followed, de los Santos counter-replied. If it had been, it would've been "more simplified and understandable by each one of us."
Gealon didn't pick up the thread of argument about the template that de los Santos unwound. Instead, he used the general defense of complying with "guidelines, the colatilla, the enabling laws, the Comelec resolution." But he acceded to Pesquera's amendments, in effect admitting that he was asking for more money to be exempted than the period of the election ban required.
WHAT RILED GEALON. The laws committee head raised his voice after Minority Floor Leader Nestor Archival Sr. commented on Gealon's defense and motion to approve the request for Comelec ban exemption. Archival said: "Mr. Chairman, naay balaod. But we don't understand what's in the balaod. Unsa may naa diha karon"? Was he just teasing or telling a sad state of affairs, about councilors who read but may not understand the law?
A video clip of the short incident circulated in some sectors of social media showed Gealon's impatience, if not anger, at colleagues not satisfied with his work: "Mr. Chairman, I understand because I'm a lawyer in the first place. And exactly that's the reason why the body appointed me as chairman of the committee on laws. That's why I presented it before the body in the best way I know how, based on my personal knowledge, experience and background of the law."
He couldn't allow, Gealon said, "this body to be taken in the dark. Mr. Chairman, that's why the specifics are there." Commented a February 6, 2025 post of Ed Rama, Gealon's former co-instructor at USJ-R: "Mao diay nga nangugat na ka, 'Torney."
WHAT THE INCIDENT TELLS AGAIN. Most if not all councilors don't read information and data, especially if given in heavy doses, contained in resolutions and ordinances, supporting documents and attachments..
Yes, they ask for the information and when not given fret about approving a proposal without the required data. That doesn't necessarily mean though they will read and study the data even if available. Of course, when they talk about it during discussion, they say they "perused," not just read, the material.
Most, or all, don't have enough grasp of the law or other technical knowledge that covers a proposed legislation. Apparently, the honorable councilors need (1) a summary or explanation of complicated material and (2) a working understanding of the subject. We're told that consultants for each councilor are supposed to be supplying that help.
Yet the present system and practice may not be working. Perhaps, the next crop of city councilors who'll take oath this June 30 can fix the problem.