Redistricting Cebu
The bid by Rep. Jonas Cortes to convert Mandaue City into a lone congressional district has gotten the support of no less than Gov. Hilario Davide III. Earlier, the effort started moving in the House of Representatives with the approval of the committee on local government of Cortes’s House Bill 4117.
Davide’s argument favoring the move is interesting. He said that with Mandaue City taken out of the sixth district, the two towns that would remain in the sixth district, Consolacion and Cordova, would get more opportunities and could help in their bid to become cities. The sixth district formerly included Lapu-Lapu City but it is now a lone congressional district.
But the truth is that, with Mandaue as lone congressional district, the original sixth district can laready be considered the most sliced congressional district in Cebu while having the most number of House members, which would be three (the next is the original second district that, having been divided into two congressional districts, now has two).
The splitting of the sixth and second districts are a product both of need and of the initiatives of their congressional representatives. But the legislators who presided over the splitting, former congresswoman Nerissa Soon-Ruiz and Rep. Wilfredo Caminero, cannot say they considered the wider perspective—meaning a better way of increasing Cebu’s representation in the House—when they moved for the splitting of the said districts.
A sixth congressional district with only Consolacion and Cordova towns is a setup that would look awkward geographically. Consolacion is in the Cebu mainland while Cordova is in Mactan island. If that happens, Cordova might just as well be part of a congressional district that would span the entire Mactan island (Lapu-Lapu City and Cordova), with Consolacion becoming part of a congressional district with Mandaue or being absorbed by the fifth district.
The last suggestion involves another congressional district, which is actually our point. Why can’t the Cebuano representatives in the House, specifically those in the province, meet and map out a better way to split the congressional districts to make these conform to Cebu’s growth? The piecemeal and narrow approach used now could create problems in the future.