Counter arguments on the cityhood of Cebu (Part II)

Don Vicente Rama, the veteran legislator, was elected Assemblyman of the old 3rd District of Cebu from 1922 to 1928, then in 1934 to 1935, then as Assemblyman of the old 4th District of Cebu from 1935 to 1938. It was his being Assemblyman of the old 4th District of Cebu that he championed his bill (Bill 3360) creating the Cebu City Charter. Ironically, his fellow Cebu Assemblymen did not support his cause for the conversion of the Municipality of Cebu into a city.

This is the continuation of his counter-arguments on the opposition of the creation of the city charter:  "Inasmuch as real estate taxation is considered as the most stable and most certain of all sources of income of a government, the public revenue which the City of Cebu may derive is estimated at not less than P128,000.

"In short, the city of Cebu under a special charter will have an income of not less than P1,000,000 annually. It does not have to increase the taxes, duties and imports now collected. Imagine, for a moment, what could be accomplished with such an enormous income at the disposal of a government run honestly, efficiently, economically, and free from professional parasites and cheap politicians! In financial resources, the city of Cebu is far ahead of many first class provinces. With the exception of Iloilo, Pangasinan, and Occidental Negros the other provinces lag behind and can only claim an income half as much as that of this city. In 1935 for instance, the income of Bohol was only P303,000; Leyte had P342,000; Samar P177,000; and Oriental Negros collected P133,000. But notwithstanding these small and uncertain revenues, the governments of these provinces operated and functioned normally and not one has become a failure or has gone bankrupt.

"The position of mayor of the city, who will be appointed by the President of the Philippines with the approval of the commission on appointments, should not only be considered as a retrogression in our democracy. The mayor of the city of Manila, as well as the mayors of the large cities in the United States, is an appointive official; yet no one has dared challenge that democracy in these regions has been driven to the rocks. The essence of a representative government in the special charter of the city of Cebu."

Don Vicente Rama championed the creation of the Cebu City Charter despite the opposition of his fellow Cebuano lawmakers. Cebu was eventually inaugurated as a city on February 24, 1937. It was in that year that three other municipalities were converted as cities, this is what we call the Quadruplet Cities of the South: Cebu, Iloilo, Zamboanga, and Davao.

Don Vicente Rama, as author of the cityhood of Cebu, was expected to be the logical appointee as the first Cebu City mayor by President Manuel L. Quezon, however it was a non-Cebuano that became the first Cebu City Mayor, his name was Alfredo Jacinto of Gapan, Nueva Ecija. Don Vicente Rama was eventually appointed Cebu City Mayor by President Quezon as he made the announcement of Rama's acceptance of the position on September 19, 1938, serving until 1940 when he ran for the Senate.