Council has yet to agree on definition of ‘simple majority’

It’s been three weeks since the councilors of the Barug Team Rama bloc voluntarily vacated their positions, but the Cebu City Council has yet to elect committee chairpersons following arguments on how to define what a simple majority is.

The Team Rama bloc argued that since there are 18 members in the council, including the presiding officer, the simple majority should then be 10 and not nine.

The opposition said that a 2012 Supreme Court (SC) ruling citing Section 467 (a) of the Local Government Code on the same situation declared that regardless of reaching the quorum requirement or for the purposes of voting, the vice mayor should be included in the counting of the majority.

“Majority has been defined by the SC in Santiago vs. Guingona, et al. as that which is greater than half of the membership of the body or that number is 50 percent plus 1 of the entire membership,” reads part of the decision.

Council to ask DILG to look into their situation.

The Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan councilors, though, said that another SC ruling from 2016 stated that while the presiding officer is counted in the determination of a quorum, it does not mention the inclusion of the former in determining the simple majority.

Majority floor leader Margarita Osmeña said that in Javier vs. Cadiao, et al., the SC ruled that the vice governor, as the presiding officer, should be counted for purposes of reaching a quorum, but not in the determination of the required number of votes necessary to uphold a matter in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP).

“To hold that the presiding officer should be counted in determining the required number of votes necessary to uphold a mat- ter before the SP shall be counter-productive. It would admit deadlocks as ordinary incidents in the conduct of business of the SP, which in effect incapacitates the said body from addressing every issue laid before it,” reads a portion of the decision.

After a close to 50-minute heated discussion during yesterday’s regular session, Osmeña and minority floor leader James Anthony Cuenco moved to ask the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Central Office to look into the situation.

Until then, the committees will remain vacant. Osmeña said it was the only solution to the argument since both parties insist that they are right.

“It’s not getting anywhere. They were negotiating that they be given chairmanships, but that was already taken out of consideration,” she said.

Osmeña, however, maintained that none of the opposition will be given chairmanships. /