Insisting that it was not a “boycott”, Bacolod City Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson said yesterday the Sangguniang Panlungsod session last Wednesday was called off due to lack of quorum.
Sayson said that under the rules of the SP, eight councilors constitute a quorum that would allow the session to proceed. The vice mayor clarified that the calling off of the session was not due to “intentional absences” or planned boycott, as he explained “it just happened that most of them have other important concerns.” “Since we didn’t have the quorum, I called it off,” Sayson stressed. The vice mayor said that usually there are only one or two councilors absent every session day posing no problem with the conduct of the session. At the SP Session Hall Wednesday were Councilors Sonya Verdeflor, Elmer Sy, Catalina Alison, Archie Baribar and El Cid Familiaran, all members of the minority block in the city council known as the First Five. Sayson declared that there was “no session” at around 4:30 p.m., after only five of the 14 members of the SP showed up. Normally, the regular session of the SP starts at 3 p.m. every Wednesday. Conspicuously absent were Councilors Em Ang, Caesar Distrito, Dindo Ramos, Carlos Jose Lopez, Homer Bais, Al Victor Espino, and Roberto “Bobby” Rojas, ABC president Mona Dia Jardin and SK Federation president Keith Ramos, who were either on official leave or official travel. While there was no confirmation that the GP councilors intentionally “boycotted” the session, suspicions were strong that it was their way of protesting the process of choosing the group’s vice mayoralty bet. Mayor Evelio Leonardia announced Tuesday that the national directorate of the Nationalist People’s Coalition had chosen former Councilor Greg Gasataya as the party’s candidate for vice mayor from among the nine contenders whose names were submitted by the local group. /WDJ
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
|