The law on term limits is very clear it is about term limits. If the intention of the law meant to tackle the issue of residency, then it would have said so. That’s why Cebu City residents must pay particular attention to what councilor Jun Pe and his BOPK are doing.
Pe is currently a councilor representing the north district. But aware that the three terms he is allowed by law is about to run out, he ran to the south district to register on the notion that a change of residence will allow him to skirt the law on term limits.
Pe’s abandonment of the north district to become a registered voter in the south is in itself a very tricky situation because while he remains a councilor representing the north, he in fact is already a registered voter in the south. Is that possible? Or even allowed?
God did not appear to Pe in a dream to ask him to register in the south. Pe was driven to register in the south by one motive alone — to presumably erase the statutory limitations of his being a restricted three-term councilor of the north district.
Pe is relatively young. Nevertheless, the future is dim about him being ever mayor. So let us just say his political career will forever be defined as being a perpetual councilor. Now if none of the concerned agencies stops this folly, here is what will likely happen:
Assuming Pe wins as a spanking new moist-eyed councilor of the south, then gets reelected to a second and a third and final term, what do you suppose happens next? Why, he simply moves back to the north and there, if he wins, begins a fresh three-term cycle again.
Now imagine if this bright idea catches on. We will become the only country in the world where officials swing back and forth from one district to another, like ants moving from a piece of crumb to the next and back. We will have a “pendulumic” style of governance.
But if officials are allowed to do that, why cannot voters be allowed likewise, so that voters who do not like Pe can move out of whichever new district he chooses to reside in. If Pe moves to the south, those who don’t like him should vote in the north, and so on back and forth.
Actually this is getting to be quite fun and interesting, now that we have seen how the Pe principle works, a principle the BOPK has adopted and stamped its imprimatur on by carrying him in its new slate. Maybe the Pe principle should be adopted nationwide.