‘Council deadlock to paralyze operations’

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said that the vacancy in the chairmanships in the City Council’s committees will paralyze the transactions in the legislative body.

It is also an insult to democracy where the majority rules, he added.

“BOPK (Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan) is now the majority and anyone who knows how to count can see that. They (Barug Team Rama allies) are manipulating and interpreting the law where the minority becomes majority,” Osmeña said in a news conference yesterday.

The mayor believed that the members of the minority bloc is just giving them a hard time.

“The people should know. In the meantime, they plan to give us a hard time but just give me time. We will try to untangle this,” he said.

The mayor said that the BOPK councilors will continue to function in the committees that they earlier agreed to be part of.

Councilor Jose Daluz III of Barug Team Rama, a lawyer, explained that the members of the minority bloc have to abide by what the law states.

If they allowed BOPK councilors to sit in the different committees, he said it will make future legislations approved by the council invalid.

During the council’s organizational session last Tuesday, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella called for an abrupt adjournment, saying that the majority bloc needed 10 votes for them to elect the officers and members of the standing committees.

Even before the session, Daluz said they already know that the BOPK councilors will object to their move.

But he said that the BOPK councilors can seek remedy by referring the matter to the Department of Interior and Local Government or to the court. /