Let us hold a debate among councilors!

Next week, the election campaign for local elective positions will start. In our city, it is going to be a challenge hurled by the opposition against the men and women who carry the banners of the administration. The challengers are outsiders asking us, the voters, to put them in the reins of our city government.

The nature of the local campaign is still expected to revolve mainly around what is known as "pulong-pulong". Administration candidates will visit the barangays and supposedly tell the voters what they have done in the last term and what they still hope to accomplish, if given another mandate. On the other hand, the challenging opposition groups, also in their sorties, will try to explain to the electorate that the administration failed to deliver in, at least, the last three years and at the same time, reveal what they intend to, if elected.

Unfortunately, because the schedules of all political groups are not synchronized for simultaneous "pulong-pulong", the BOPK, KUSUG and that of Ms. Georgia Osmeña, (the enumeration is alphabetical, to avoid being misunderstood) will not speak in the presence of one another and the voters in one forum or set of fora. Understandably, this practice will not afford us the chance to sort out the truth from what is not. Neither may we have the opportunity to gauge, more realistically, which party espouses the better program of government.

But, certainly, the call of the day is for us, the electors, to exercise our right to of suffrage intelligently. Intelligent voting demands that we understand whether our incumbent city administration elective officials, particularly the city councilors, have performed well that their efforts resulted in giving us quality local legislation.

To approximate this call, it is ideal that at certain times during the campaign period, the candidates debate their respective position. I suggest a specific proposition for the initial round. Other topics can come later. Let us ask the administration councilors to choose what they think is their best ordinance in the 2007-2010 term. While the local legislators have been, rightly or wrongly, portrayed as rubber-stamp, they, surely, must be proud of having written down something they consider as a brilliant ordinance.

I like to think of some few possible criteria of a quality ordinance. First, it should be novel, meaning, it is not an amendment to an old thought contained in a previous ordinance. Second, it must have helped improve the lives of city residents. Third, it has been, by way of its actual implementation and enforcement, demonstrated to be feasible and realistic.

In the forum that I suggest to be convened, let the brightest re-electionist among the councilors, in taking the affirmative, defend the quality of their ordinance. I imagine it should be my Tau Kappa Lambda fraternity brother, Atty. Edgardo Labella. His education, experience and savvy will help him.

The opposition, once informed of the ordinance of choice by the administration, will attempt to show to us why this piece of local legislation is not worthy of being labeled a quality ordinance. From the ranks of the KUSUG candidates for the city council, I feel that my college of law classmate Atty. Fritz V. Quiñanola can represent them. I am sorry that I have not as yet identified a good bet from the group of Ms. Georgia Osmeña.

In our midst, there are many civic and service clubs like the Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, that can provide the forum for this most enlightening debate. It will be a feature on the cap of the host organization. Because the Toastmasters Clubs boast themselves as the communication club, they may also take the cudgels of organizing this proposed encounter. I am sure that whichever association succeeds to stage this mental joust, it can select the moderator whose fairness, impartiality and profundity will add prestige and honor to the function.

The debate, which I further suggest to be co-sponsored by the broadcasters association so that it can carried live by all Cebu radio stations, should be held at a day and time when most of us Cebuanos can listen to and/or witness. After all, we, for our own purposes, are the ones to determine the substance and merit of each pronouncement of the debaters. Are there any takers, Rotarians, Lions, Kiwanians, Toastmasters?