Citizen's time

I have the privilege of currently undertaking the codification work of the ordinances of Mandaue City thanks to the trust and confidence of the city's leaders, His Honor, Mayor Jonas Cortes and the honorable Vice Mayor Glen Bercede. This is a year-long, back-breaking contract (which I love to do) and I am on the last few stages of the project. When this shall be done very soon, with the drafting of about six codes sourced from the city ordinances from way back the 60s, I can punch the air in triumphant relief. It is not often that ordinary men, like me, can contribute a little something to the growth of a city, like Mandaue.

Along the course of codifying the city's ordinances, I came across a brilliant republican idea. It was sponsored by Atty. Victor Biaño, a former student of mine in law school, when he was a member of the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Mandaue City. His colleagues saw his wisdom and they readily made his suggestion a part of the city council's processes.

Stripped to its basic, Atty. Biaño's proposal was as republican as anything can truly be. The lawyer/councilor acknowledged that nobody has a monopoly of knowledge. Indeed,  among the Mandaue City constituency are men and women with profound understanding of certain things that could really be functional for the city. But, not being city councilors, those knowledgeable citizenry would not normally be able to address the city council.

Atty. Biaño wanted to hear them discuss their ideas at the sanggunian. He knew that listening to them might point the councilors to a brilliant concept. To achieve that end, he opened the council session to them and called it, how else, but Citizen's Time. He made it a part of the agenda to afford every resident of Mandaue City, the opportunity and privilege of bringing his thought right into the heart of the discussion of the city's legislature. 

How could it be done when as a general rule, a non-member, unless invited by the sanggunian, has no speaking rights in the session? And normally, they were less inclined to inviting resource persons! As authored by Atty. Biaño, such citizen could request to be inserted in the council's agenda in order to present what he might imagine as a useful measure for the city. After his presentation, the proponent would answer any question from members of the body to clarify what might have been rather blurred. Of course, it was the sanggunian's call whether to adopt the proposal or put it in its archives.

I take this matter up in this column today because I hope the incoming Sanggunian Panlungsod of Cebu City considers it. Those who were reelected in the 2013 polls might want to review their internal rules especially that it is mandated for them, by the Local Government Code, to adopt their rules of procedure within 90 days from assumption of office. Hon. Sisinio Andales, who looms as the most appropriate fellow to study this issue, can help push this subject for acceptance by his colleagues. It will not make him less knowledgeable to adopt the Biaño proposition.

Assuming that lawyers, among many other professionals, are more interested in this kind of a rule, there are also Attys. Gerardo Carillo, (BOPK and on his comeback term) and Hans Abella (Team Rama, a neophyte of sort) in the next sanggunian. They have in their hearts the real essence of a republican regime, so that there is absolutely no doubt that they can persuade their party-mates to open the session of the city council to hear proposals coming from non-councilors by providing in their internal rules Atty. Biano's citizen's time.

This early though, many of us read different signals from the incoming city council. Politics may still creep into their psyche such that the BOPK, with superior numbers to control the sanggunian, might prefer to stay back. In this case, I look forward to the legislative leadership of the newly elected Vice Mayor Edgar Labella. He can initiate writing into their rules of procedure the republican thought Atty. Biaño once wrote in Mandaue City.

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