Talisay City to showcase "high tech" session hall

CEBU, Philippines - The next Talisay City council will showcase a “high tech” session hall when it convenes next month.

“We’ve set up LCD monitors for each of the councilors where they can read the resolutions and ordinances. It’s really going to be a paperless session,” said Vice Mayor-elect Alan Bucao, in an interview with the media.

Bucao said not like the laptop computers, which were provided to them two years ago, the monitors will be permanently placed in the councilors’ respective tables, which will only be used during sessions.

The monitors will not have keyboards as most of the council members have limited knowledge of the computer technology, said Bucao.

The monitors, he explained, will be interconnected to one another, with council secretary Emigdio Enjambre taking control of everything what the councilors have to see in the screens in front of them.

The present council members including Bucao and Enjambre were already equipped with laptop computers each for the purpose of having paperless sessions, and to cut cost in the process.

Last year however when most of the councilors stopped bringing with them their laptops, the office of the council secretary started to distribute again photocopies of resolutions, ordinances, and committee reports to them.

Bucao said the laptops, which were purchased at P47,000 each, will then be used for research purposes.

Meanwhile, the new session hall will no longer have microphones for the councilors, said Bucao.

Instead, two podiums with microphones will be posted on each side so that councilors who are sponsoring a resolution or ordinance will have to stand up and speak at the provided podium.

The vice mayor said it is patterned after that in the Congress where lawmakers will take time to go to the podium and face the entire body to be heard.

The improvement cost the city P60,000, said Bucao.

The new city council is set to open on July 13, but Bucao said it may be a week earlier if there is a need to reschedule it. - THE FREEMAN