Wenceslao wants law creating body to enforce city ordinances revisited

CEBU, Philippines – To ensure that approved ordinances of the city are properly enforced by the right authority, Cebu City Councilor Noel Wenceslao wants to revisit the city ordinance that defines the functions and composition of the Cebu City Ordinance Enforcement Commission.

The CCOEC was created in 1987 by virtue of City Ordinance 1241 after the then council received a pool of complaints about the failure of the city to address some social concerns despite the existing ordinances.

But over the years, the commission was left inactive for lack of persons who will carry out its functions.

Section 3 of C.O. 1241 provides that the commission shall be composed of one chairman and four members, all to be appointed by the city mayor.

"There is a need to revisit the ordinance in order to revise certain provision and to provide specific committees or office that will be involved in the enforcement," reads a portion of the proposed amendment of C.O. 1241.

Wenceslao wants to specifically name the members of the commission which shall now include the mayor or his duly authorized representative, the vice mayor, the chairman of the council's committee on laws, ordinances, public accountability, good government, chairman of the council's committee on urban planning and development, the city legal officer and the city planning development officer.

Under section 3 also, the mayor may designate three secretariats who will provide technical support, document the projects, prepare reports and resolutions among others. There used to be only one secretariat handling a major task.

Based on its original function, the CCOEC will make a study on all existing ordinances with the end in view of giving them full meaning and more effectiveness.

On the basis of their study, they may recommend to the mayor which ordinance must be strictly implemented given the circumstances and urgent needs, which ordinance has to be abolished because it is a duplication of another ordinance, which ordinance needs to be amended to make it more effective and which ordinance could not be implemented considering the prevailing situation.

The commission will be assisted by the City Council's Legislative Research, Monitoring and Tracking Division (LRMTD) that was recently revived.

The main task of this division is to do research on the status of all ordinances that have been approved and passed whether still pending, need amendments or still unimplemented, monitor the implementation of these ordinances, check if there are signs of duplication and ensure that there is an organized database of all the necessary information.

Roy Vincent Alix, chief of the LRMTD, earlier said that based on their initial inventory a lot of ordinances have not been implemented. (FREEMAN)