Mayors face new “unfriendly” dads

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – The mayor here and of the neighboring town Mangaldan seem not to get rid of their political foes at the legislative body, many of whom  won the recent election.

Dagupan City Mayor Belen Fernandez

In Mangaldan, reelectionist mayor Bona Fe D. Parayno won the May 9 poll while four councilors in the ticket of her defeated mayoralty rival Manny Casupang won, too.
With five councilors on her side, Parayno would be locking horns in the next three years against these four lawmakers.

Batas Pambansa Bilang 51 says that all municipalities in the Philippines, with the exception of Pateros in Metro Manila, have eight regular members or councilors elected at-large.

The city has regular 10 or more regular lawmakers.
But the inclusion of the ex oficio and president of the League of Barangay will comprise the town and city councils to nine and 11 members

Antagonistic Veem, Dads

In this city, Mayor Belen T. Fernandez, who ran unopposed, have to deal with four elected lawmakers whose antagonism to her administration reverberated during the 45 days campaign period.

Late last year, some of these councilors delayed the approval of the P760 million 2016 city budgets by procrastinating for several months that scared the wit out of the concerned citizens here because of the tens of millions of lost projects, thousands of employees and scholars who would lose their jobs and benefits.

Mangaldan Mayor Bona Fe D. Parayno

In Mangaldan, Mayor Parayno have been shuttling back and forth since last year from her town to the Capitol in Lingayen, Pangasinan to lobby for the approval of her P40 million bank loan that her town will use for the construction of the Phase 2 of the public market.

The approval of the review by the provincial board hit a snag after Vice Mayor Casupang questioned the ordinance for the absence of the two third votes from the majority votes by the town councilors.

According to experts, loans and appropriation ordinances need two-third votes while regular ordinances need majority votes only.

But this city’s councilor Jigs Seen said there was a Supreme Court decision that even an appropriation ordinance needs only a majority votes.

A Supreme Court decision in Zamora v. Governor Caballero said that there were fourteen (14) members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Compostela Valley, the Court clearly included the Vice- Governor, as presiding officer, as part of the entire membership of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan which must be taken into account in computing the quorum.

As analogy, the 12- member City Council and the 10-member town council need seven and six councilors, respectively, to get a majority vote.

Before this stale mate at the Capitol, Parayno and her majority allies at the Sanguniang Bayan (Council) were in a bind to send the loan ordinance at the provincial board for review because Casupang would not sign the ordinance after it was approved by the majority of the lawmakers.

Political Landscape

In this city those opposition councilors who got the mandate of the voters were Luis Chito Samson, Red Erfe-Mejia, Nick Aquino, and Guillermo Vallejos who ran under the Nationalista Party of reelected vice mayor Brian Lim, who was unopposed. 
The six administration lawmakers are Maybelyn Fernandez, Dennis Canto, Netu Tamayo, Alvin Coquia, Jigs Seen, and Marvin Fabia.

These 10 solons and the new President of League of Barangays, an ex oficio member of the Council, would be expected to clash on the ballyhooed amendment of the 1978 Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) that Mayor Fernandez emphatically pushes as it would be an economic linchpin for growth and high employment here.

“Can you just imagine Dagupan City has been left by Iloilo, Cebu, Baguio City with their more than ten thousand workers, why we don’t have that numbers? We don’t provide a site for those investors,” the mayor told this paper earlier.

Barangay League President crucial in the Council

With 12 members of the Council and seven solons to comprise the majority, experts eye on the election of the Barangay League's president as his victory could help the Fernandez Administration fast tract its pet bills.
Most of the 31 village chiefs, that would be electing the League's president, are Fernandez's allies.

In Mangaldan, with four opposition lawmakers Joseph Cera, Jojo Quinto, Trish de Guzman, and Bernabe Cervas under the Nationalist People’s Coalition of outgoing Vice Mayor Casupang who won the May 9 election versus the four lawmakers in Baby Abalos, Aldrin Soriano, Johnny Cabrera, and Arnel Fabia the mayor needs to support financially or politically the next president of the League of Barangays after the election in October this year of the 30 village chiefs so she can expedite the passing of her favoured ordinances.

What she would do is to ask one of her allies to be absent in the voting so that the equation in August Chamber would be four councilors from both sides while the vice mayor breaks the tie in favour of her ordinance, an expert said.

Unlike in this city that the vice mayor is on the side of the opposition, Vice Mayor Jojo Surdilla, an old Council ally, came from her ticket.