Smarting Maj. Dads can Ask for TRO, Injunction vs Dag. Mayor

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA

Many members of the majority of the lawmaking body of Dagupan City were duped big time by the minority – five of em’ while four of the majority – pass the controversial P1.3 billion 2023 budget.

DUPED. At the top photo are the all smiling and victorious members of the minority lawmakers and their patron Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez (sitting and signing the controversial already passed 2023 appropriation ordinance) in the Office of the Mayor. Photo below are the duped bellyaching members of the majority members of the opposition in the lawmaking body of the coastal city. 

“Ang laman lang po ng agenda kahapon dalawang resolution lang po iyong resolution ukol ito sa supplemental budget ng Barangay Salisay at Barangay Tebeng. Iyon lang po ang laman kahapon. Kaya po kami nag zoom kahapon ay alam po namin na napakabilis ang sesyun dapat kahapon. Pero ang nangyari po ito po ang ginawa ng minority nakita nila ang pagkakataon at sinamantala nila na kulang  ang numero ng majority…,” beleaguered Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia narrated to Radyo Pangasinan (DWJE 88.1 FM Radio) Serbisyo Paborito’s hosts Joseph Bacani and RJ Jimenez last Wednesday how the minority made him and his three colleagues gullible and stupid on the Tuesday’s session of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. Councilors Alfie Fernandez, Celia Lim at Irene Lim-Acosta have been on leave of absence and abroad.

They were tricked if not swindled by their cunning Svengali minority counterparts who made them believed - line hook and sinker - that they just deliberate the budget of the two villages of Dagupan City and adjourned early.

The minority dads are now the butt of ridicules from the camp of their bête noire Mayor Belen Fernandez who rejoiced last September 28 after she signed the 2023 appropriation ordinance. Because it was consummated, she would be implementing the salary increase of the personnel of the local government unit, retirement benefits, loyalty pay, additional funds for the 2,500 scholars, repairs of roads and drainage, elevation of roads, procurement of medicines, firetruck and dump trucks.

THE MINORITY COULD BE LIKENED TO THE AFGHAN MUSLIMS

What the minority had done to the majority is worse than rape if one asks Army Warrant Officer and Investigator Paul Brenner (John Travolta) in the flick’s the General’s Daughter where Army Captain Elisabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson) was found dead.

 “I once asked (Colonel) Moore (James Woods) what's worse than rape. Now I know. BETRAYAL,” Sgt. Brenner said after Capt. Campbell’s father General Joseph Campbell chose silence to protect the majority of the cadets of the West Point where some of its members gang-rape her in exchanged of another star rank promotion from the Army.

The majority lawmakers in the Bangus City could be likened, too, on what happened to Soviet soldiers in the Muslim dominated country’s Afghanistan the former subjugated from December 24, 1979 to February 15, 1989.

In the true story war movie’s 9^th Company, a paratrooper Soviet Comrade Captain instructed his wet behind the ears soldiers to be sent to that hell-hole’s Afghanistan:

   “Muslim will never desecrate his house with blood. That means once you enter their village you are their guest. To kill a guest, even if he's an infidel, is "haram (forbidden)". Therefore, remember... as long as you're in the village, you are safe. But once you exit over the village's border...the very host who drank tea with you five minutes ago...may shoot you in the back just as well. Because to kill an infidel is an act of glory.

Son of a gun! To paraphrase it for the contemporary brouhaha in Dagupan City: TO DUPE THE MAJORITY IS AN ACT OF GLORY sez the Minority in their Afghan/Muslim liked demeanor.

SIMPLE MAJORITY VS QUALIFIED MAJORITY

The pronouncement of Councilor Mejia to radio commentators on his radio stations hopping that the minority illegally passed the budget because it needed a vote of ALL the members of the august body (we call it: Qualified Majority) and not a Simple Majority (where those who create a quorum of more than half of the 13 members (including the vice mayor) of the august body – just like in the Tuesday session) was wrong. It was already opined in 2019 by Department of Interior & Local Government Undersecretary Marivel C. Sacendoncillo on the question of Lukban, Quezon Mayor Celso Oliver Dator how many votes are needed to pass an appropriation ordinance.

Here’s what I wrote last Thursday on my blog:

Sacendoncillo, explained to Mayor Dator that what is being referred to under Article 107 2nd sentence of paragraph (of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Local Government Code of 1991 which require the approval of a QUALIFIED MAJORITY VOTE is an ordinance or resolution (specific appropriation) authorizing or directing the payment of money or creating a liability”. Sabi pa niya na ang Appropriation Ordinance at ang Ordinance directing the payment of money or creating liability ay iba basi sa nilalaman ng Section 55 (b) ng Code na kung saan ay ni mention ang dalawa kasama ang ipinasang Appropriation Ordinance. Hindi kasali ang Appropriation Ordinance sa QUALIFIED MAJORITY VOTE na sinasabi sa Article 107 2nd sentence of paragraph (of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the LGC. 

“In view of the above-cited DILG Opinion, this Department is of the position that the required vote to pass an (appropriation) ordinance is only SIMPLE MAJORITY (emphasis by this writer),” she cited.

FILE A TRO, INJUNCTION

If Mejia et al. wanted to vindicate themselves on the humiliation their gullibility cost them dearly, they go to the Regional Trial Court and file a temporary restraining order and injunction of violation of the law on Qualified Majority.

Who knows the Judge sided with them and throws to the bin the argument of Undersecretary Sacendoncillo.

As what a General Santos City Councilor told his opposing colleague who waved a DILG opinion: “That’s nothing unless the Supreme Court has decided on the matter”.