Fight for city council control
Drowned by such issues as Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino’s opposition to the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Cebu City and Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s state of the city address is the failed reorganization in the city council.
The reorganization attempt was an offshoot of the shift in allegiance of three Barug Team Rama councilors to the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK). The BOPK now outnumber the Barug Team Rama councilors, 9 to 8, excluding the presiding officer, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella, who is with Barug Team Rama.
The reorganization effort actually started on a pleasant note days ago with Barug Team Rama Councilor James Cuenco voluntarily relinquishing his position as majority leader to BOPK Councilor Margarita Osmeña. Other Barug Team Rama councilors followed suit by relinquishing their committee chairmanships.
The BOPK pounced on that development during Tuesday’s inaugural session with Margot nominating only BOPK councilors as members, vice chairman and chairman of 23 of 24 standing committees of the city council. The only Barug Team Rama councilor who did not suffer the fate of his party mates was Philip Zafra, but only because he is an ex-officio member of the city council as head of the city’s Association of Barangay Councils (ABC). He was nominated to head the public affairs committee.
But before the BOPK plan could be consummated, Barug Team Rama councilors questioned the determination of “simple majority” in a legislative body with 18 members ( in this instance, Labella being the council’s 18th member). Citing a Supreme Court ruling, they argued that “simple majority” means 10 councilors, not nine, the magic number of BOPK councilors.
The Barug Team Rama councilors’ move resulted in an impasse in the reorganization of committee leadership, something that can only be resolved, if the opposition insists on its stance, by the court or possibly the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), if the BOPK councilors seek their help.
In reality, what the Barug Team Rama councilors are doing is merely to delay the inevitable, although in doing so they threw a wrench into whatever the mayor had in mind, like the selling of South Road Property (SRP) lots. Eventually, though, the city council will adapt to the new normal, with the BOPK in control.