City ordinances must not be confiscatory!

For our special presentation on our talkshow in Straight from the Sky, we bring you the Cebu Business Month for June is always the month of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. which is now on its 20th year. With us tonight are the newly inducted officers of CCCI led by President Melanie Ng, Vice President for Admissions, Director Nonoy Ezpeleta, Business Development and Christian Paroan Cebu Business Month Chairman and its theme is “Bringing Business to the next Level.”

So get to know who the Cebu Chamber has through all these years transformed itself from the social club 30-years ago when I was one of its Vice Presidents to what it is today a true blue working organization geared to promote Cebu companies and bring it up to the next level. So watch it on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00PM tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday. We also have replays on MyTV channel 30 at 9:00PM tonight and at 7:00AM and 9:00PM respectively on Wednesday and Friday.

*** I just wrote in last Thursday’s column the opinion given by Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Regional Director Atty. Rene Burdeos, CESO III in response to the query posed by acting Vice Mayor Leah Ouano Japson who asked this pertinent question, “Whether the remaining four (4) members of the Council can deliberate and approve the revised Annual Budget of 2016 of the City of Cebu and that whether these remaining councilors may conduct a budget hearing in the absence of the Chairperson of the Committee on Budget and Finance who is currently serving as Acting Mayor and the three (3) other members present?”

What was very loud and clear as presented by Atty. Burdeos was that conducting a budget hearing for the 2016 Annual Budget maybe legal, but it is not proper simply because first of all, there are only four Councilors left and, secondly, by July 1, there is a new set of elective officials who would take their place to represent the people of Cebu City.

Then a few days ago, I read in the newspapers that the Cebu City Council or what’s left of it approved an ordinance granting senior citizens who are 60-years old and above free access to movies in cinemas in Cebu City. I’m sure that my good friend Doming Chaves Jr. of the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs must be elated by this news. But whoa! Wait-a-minute! Since when were laws approved by the City Council confiscatory and detrimental to the conduct of business in the city?

I’m already a senior citizen, but making it a law to allow seniors to watch free movies is worse than Martial Law. I recalled that there was a public hearing on this ordinance and the Metro Cebu Theater’s Association opposed it in a position paper signed by SM Cinemas. Yes we follow the SM Cinema position paper because they are the biggest theater operators not just in Cebu but also throughout the rest of the country.

Allow me to reprint that portion so that everyone gets to understand the position of the theater industry.

“For this purpose, we also suggest that the Proposed Ordinance provide for the execution of a memorandum of agreement between the City and each cinema operator that will lay down the terms and conditions to implement the Proposed Ordinance and to document, among others, the following:

a. Consent of the cinema operator to share in the cost of providing free movies to senior citizens residing in Cebu City

b. Undertaking of the City to reimburse or subsidize the admission costs and to issue tax credit certificates in favor of the cinema operator

c. Authorization for the cinema operator to utilize said tax credit certificates as payment for amusement taxes, local business taxes and real property taxes due until fully utilized

d. Sample computation of the reimbursement or subsidy (e.g., base ticket price less amusement tax and 20% senior citizen’s discount) e. Screening days covered f. Qualifications of the senior citizen g. Procedure or mechanics for availing the free movie” I don’t think the four Councilors who signed this approved ordinance took into consideration the position paper of the theater industry. Mind you, after that public hearing, there were no more clarificatory meetings called by the Cebu City Council and the next thing we knew, this ordinance is now being rammed into our throat. Meanwhile I do not yet know whether this ordinance has been signed into a law by acting Mayor Margot Osmeña. I certainly hope she has not yet signed it for I’m very sure that the theater owners in Cebu City will oppose it.

Again let me point out that City Ordinances must not be confiscatory or detrimental to business. If you read the laws governing the right of eminent domain, when government takes over a property for public use, it is obligated to pay the person whose property that the government will take. This is called justice. So when the City of Cebu allows Senior Citizens free movies, the City of Cebu is obligated to pay for the cost of that person sitting inside the movie house because whether they like it or not there is a high cost in operating a theater. Secondly, we find it totally improper that only four Councilors approved this ordinance, why can’t they wait for July 1?