Cebu City and Talisay City Councils

Judging from the volume of reactions I have been receiving lately, reactions to my few articles on the outputs of the city councils of Cebu City and Mandaue City, that is, I now feel safe to claim that we, as a general rule, are concerned with how our government officials perform their duties and responsibilities. The known social elite and the perceived “masa”, among us have, thus far, chorused in their otherwise unexpected feedbacks with some of them declaring that they just did not know how and where to get basic information. Such concern is manifested by the dismay of Cebu City residents upon seeing the comparison of the total of 27 ordinances passed by Cebu City Sanggunian to the 124 done by Mandaue City council.

One such reaction came from a voter of Talisay City. He gave me his name but asked that I keep it off the record. Desiring to supplement the dearth of available facts, he, in calling me, intended to find out how his city councilors fared. By his using the word “fared”, he made it rather clear that he wanted to compare the production of both city councils in the year 2012 as a basis of determining whether his city elected officials were up to the task.

Who am I to fail to oblige to such a decent request? In any case, discussing the issue in the context of including Talisay City, should be a part of my social function. There is a need to do it because while we share common territorial boundaries, it is, to the less politically involved, not easy to identify where Cebu City ends and where Talisay City starts.

In the midst of this difficulty to ascertain our geographical limits, let us first consider that population wise, we have these data. Cebu City voters number about 450,000 while those of Talisay City reach almost 50,000. Differently stated, the voting population of Talisay is just about one fifth compared to ours.

This smaller population entitles Talisay City to elect, at large, only 10 councilors. Together with the president of its Association of Barangay Councils and the chairman of the federation of Sanggunian Kabataan, the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Talisay City is a legislative body composed of 12 members, each of whom receives compensation of almost P50,000.00 every month. We keep in mind that there are 18 members of Cebu City SP each getting almost P55,000 monthly.

We, the residents of this queen city of the south must breathe some degree of relief to know that the production of our councilors may, quantitatively, be better than those of our southern neighbor. I know that my previous articles showing the huge disparity in the number of ordinances churned out by Mandaue and Cebu City councils stung some of us so much that in their reactions, they coined some unprintable words. The picture here is helpfully positive.

It will make us, Cebu City residents, a little more comfortable to learn that in the year 2012, Talisay City council passed 16 ordinances. This total is lower than the output of Cebu City SP's 27. These bare figures seem to suggest that our councilors were a bit busier than their Talisay City counterparts.

To find out how much each ordinance costs the voters of Talisay City, let us multiply their number (12 members) and their monthly pay (P 50,000.00). For the whole year, the estimated compensation paid by the city to their sanggunian totaled P7,200,000.00. If we divide this amount by 16 ordinances, the result is staggering. Each piece of Talisay City ordinance costs roughly P450,000.00.

On this parameter, Cebu City was luckier. 18 councilors times P55,000 times 12 months divided by 27 ordinances would result to P440,000.00. This was our cost per ordinance passed in Cebu City in 2012.

Of course, the Talisaynons can claim that: (a) their council is barely a decade old and (b) they, being a smaller city, have fewer problems to address by way of ordinances but no matter these apparent justifications, I, as a Cebu City resident, am happy with the figures. Ehem.