Jonas, Glenn, 8 councilors sworn into office

CEBU, Philippines - Reelected Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, newly elected Vice Mayor Glenn Bercede, and eight members of the city council who are allied with the administration took their oath of office yesterday morning.

Newly elected councilors who ran under Team Mandaue of Mayor Cortes were the first to be sworn into office yesterday by Regional Trial Court Branch 28 Judge Marilyn Yap, followed by Bercede. Cortes was the last to sworn into office.

Yesterday morning’s oath taking, witnessed by families of the newly elected officials, was followed by a Mass in the afternoon and an inaugural dinner program at six p.m.

Aside from Cortes and Bercede, also sworn into office were reelected city councilors Diosdado Suico, Jimmy Lumapas, Jose Jefferson Ceniza, Beethoven Andaya, and newly elected councilors Demetrio “Jun”Cortes Jr., who was once a former city vice mayor, Benjamin Basiga, and Nenita Layese.

During a press conference yesterday Cortes, the mayor discussed some of his priorities.

He said he will meet with the members of the city council as soon as possible but made it clear that he would not interfere with the distribution of the committee chairmanships.

But he would also want to know the chairmanships the councilors would be handling so that he may be able to delegate to them some of his work to make them more responsive to the needs of their constituents.

Cortes said he plans to pursue all the pending projects especially in the field of environment, education , health, and peace and order.

In the field of education, Cortes plans to construct more schools.

He said that with the number of enrollees this year, there is a need to put up more schools.

With this, the city is planning to construct a medium rise school at the back of the Department of Education (DepEd) office to cater to students from barangays Centro, Mantuyong, and Alang-alang.

Once this medium high school is constructed, the demolition of dilapidated classrooms will follow.

A waiting area will also be constructed inside the school perimeter fence so that parents would no longer wait for their children outside the school which contributes to the congestion of traffic.

Cortes also said that he also plans to allocate more subsidy and upgrade the Mandaue City College since it is the city’s obligation to provide quality education at an affordable rate.

He also wants to have a permanent site for the MCC and the unfinished medium rise condominium in barangay Looc is being considered to be the school’s permanent site.

Cortes said the medium rise condominium which was a project of the administration of former Mandaue city Mayor Thadeo Ouano is not viable for a socialized housing.

Cortes explained that the beneficiaries of this medium rise condominium are 600 squatter families living in sitio Paradise in barangay Looc.

However, the condominium could only accommodate 200 families and he even doubts they could pay for the monthly amortization which is P2,500 for 25 years.

Cortes said he will still seek approval from the National Housing Authority over the planned conversion of the structures into a school as there is a pending P100 million loan to finish its construction.

The Mayor said that it would be much better if the P100 million loan will be used to purchase a lot which could accommodate more than 1,000 urban poor families in the city.

For his environment project, the Mayor also intends to realize the Umapad Dumpsite Ecopark development, and the establishment of a common Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and sanitary landfill to address the enormous challenge of waste disposal.

Cortes said he also plans to distribute government offices in other barangays in order to stir growth.  (FREEMAN NEWS)