The mayor's foes are treading on dangerous grounds
The head of the political group opposed to His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama, is obviously doing everything he can to regain control of the city hall. He has been in that mode since it became clear that the two of them reached the dead end of their alliance to become vitriolic contenders to the mayoralty in the 2013 elections.
To us, ordinary residents, if the clash between Mayor Rama and his opponent were mere matters of policies, their struggle would have been understandable. We could tolerate their espousal of diametrically opposed ideas. Politics being a contest on how to win the sympathy of the constituency, we would expect political fiends doing everything to make the other party appear incompetent, undependable and even corrupt. Doing anything beyond that, like the scene, I seem to observe, is actually treading on dangerous lines.
Let me try to validate what I am saying. Sometime in the middle of 2012, about a year before the 2013 polls, when the contest between Mayor Rama and his eventual challenger was just beginning to take form, the city council passed Ordinance No. 2332. In essence, that ordinance prevented anyone, including the mayor, from selling or otherwise dealing with the South Road Properties. Was it designed to preserve the chance to sell any part of the reclaimed land to the winner in the 2013 elections with the expectations of the councilors then that Mayor Rama would lose?
Frankly speaking, when the ordinance was still a draft proposal, I agreed with some leading legal lights whoopined that it was flawed. It took away a power, duty, if you must, vested by law on the mayor to administer. When the city council was still discussing its merits, I thought reason would prevail. I surmised that they would conclude that such an act would not find a legal leg to stand on. Nevertheless, for reasons of their own, all councilors unanimously voted for it. Unfortunately, the mayor, in apparent disregard of his legal thinking that the measure was infirmed, approved it.Since his promise of contesting its validity before the courts of law did not materialize, it must be conceded that this ordinance is presumed valid, to date.
Then, last year, the city council, surprisingly, passed a resolution that identified certain portions of the South Road Properties for sale and accordingly, authorized the mayor to proceed with the relevant deals. Since I have to assume that the councilors were conscious that under Ordinance 2332, such a resolution was necessary in order that the city could make such sale, I could not find any plausible reason for their sudden policy turnaround except that with the unanimity of their votes, I surmised that they realized that the city was prejudiced by the weight of Ordinance 2332.
But, just as the majority of the city council was excruciatingly slow in realizing that Ordinance 2332 realistically stood as a huge stumbling block to the city's progress, they were quick to bow to their political head. With the sales process approaching consummation with the delivery of the payment of the sold assets, the city councilors belonging to the BOPK wanted to stop the mayor from receiving the payment.
Did they know that should the mayor, pursuant to the city council resolution, refuse to receive the payment, he and the city stood to face an indefensible legal action by the successful bidders? They should. Or did they do that to force the bidders to sue the mayor and the city and consequently declare him liable? Perhaps. Whichever, I believe that they took that move upon the directive of their political boss. Our councilors sadly, lost the force of their logic, to the whimsical dictate of their political patron.
It was a good thing that Mayor Rama followed what he perceived as legally correct. He did not heed to the resolution authored by the councilors arrayed against him not only because it was not anchored on solid legal ground but more importantly because in receiving the payment of the bidders, he skirted the city away from a court case that the city was bound to lose. In other words, the mayor, by not listening to the political trickery of his avowed foes, saved the city.
The opponent of the mayor, as shown in this example, seems bent to resort to unorthodox ways to go back to the city hall. Unfortunately, this also exemplifies an act that treads on dangerous grounds!
- Latest
