Appreciating a wrong moon
Several weeks ago, a report was made citing the Sanggunian Panglunsod of Mandaue City as the best local legislative body in the region. It beat other city councils in performance both in the quality and quantity of their ordinances.
The report must have gladdened immensely the Mandauehanons because to achieve such a distinction, their city council must have met the rigorous criteria set forth by the Department of the Interior and Local Government. More importantly, such an award recognized the huge holistic efforts of the city council to improve the living condition of their constituency. Their work on health and environment as well as their focus on housing their urban poor, for example, is admittedly pioneering and effective.
Some years ago, I had the privilege to witness the collective drive of the honorable men and women composing the city Sanggunian to promote their city’s interest. Their politics was visionary. As I observed it, the councilors were guided simply by their desire to deliver the kind of service Mandauehanons hoped for. Indeed while they came from different social orientations and political affiliations, they never allowed their differences to hinder in their work.
Here is a situation demonstrative of their unanimity of thought. The DILG required the passage of certain codes with each code addressing specific area of governance. To understand the need of codification, let us take a particular concern. In Mandaue City, there were almost one hundred ordinances governing health and sanitation passed and approved decades apart starting from when the city was yet a municipality.
For the city residents to know what those rules were and for the city administration to implement them, they had to pour over tomes of documents that were disjointed by time. If they would be codified, the various provisions of the several ordinances were to be grouped together, their topics systematically arranged and the substantive provisions harmonized and enacted as one Code of Health and Sanitation.
That was what the city council wanted done. To achieve that objective with dispatch, and to skirt away from a potential time consuming debate, they assigned the job to me.
I remember this aspect of the result orientation of the members of the Mandaue City Council when i read last Sunday of a news item on the output of our own Cebu City Sanggunian Panglunsod. The report itself harped on the quantity of resolutions passed by the Sanggunian Panglunsod.
Technically, a resolution is an expression of the sentiment of the body. Example: When the city extends a condolence to the family of a deceased former city official, the Sanggunian passes a resolution. Another example: when the SP approves a report of one of its committees, it also passes a resolution. In other words, a report on the number of resolutions passed by a local legislative body is a report focused on the less important output of the council. A resolution lays no rule of conduct. It does not approximate the character of a law. In fact, its longest period of effectivity lasts only until a new city council is organized following elections.
The success of a Sanggunian should be measured by the number of ordinances it passed. The principal work of councilors is to craft local laws, and in our books these are called ordinances. An ordinance sets down a prescribed rule of conduct or a system of local administration. It is effective for an indefinite period because unlike a resolution, it is binding until amended or repealed.
In this light, let the next report tell us what ordinances, not resolutions, have been passed by our city council that are aimed at providing an improved delivery of basic services. I fear that when this is done, we will realize that we are appreciating the wrong moon for we can see the rationale why the Mandaue City Council outperformed our own.
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