In Cebu City: Carillo wants four districts revived

CEBU, Philippines – It he gets elected as congressman, Councilor Gerardo Carillo said he will work to restore the four districts here.

“I wanted the districts to be restored… I believe that it’s already high time to restore the districts. We give back to the districts what is due to them by work of representation,” he told reporters.

The four districts are Pardo, Mabolo, San Nicolas and Ciudad, which were then called “municipalities” before Cebu became a city.

“Before Cebu became a city, there were four municipalities, the municipalities of Pardo, San Nicolas, Ciudad and Mabolo. There were four municipalities that were merged into what we now call the City of Cebu,” Carillo said.

At present, the city is represented by two legislative districts – the North District covering the 46 barangays and the South District with 34.

“I would like to return it to become a congressional district, although one City of Cebu, but four congressional districts. The District of San Nicolas, the District of Pardo, District of Mabolo, and District of Ciudad. So there will be four,” Carillo said.

Having more districts would mean more representation for Cebu, which is reportedly better for the city.

“I believe that it’s one of the areas of concern [since] more representation, much better for the development of the city of Cebu,” he said.

Carillo said it would not be difficult to meet the first requirement, which is a population of P150,000 residents for each district.

“We already had exceeded that. Cebu City already has more than one million residents (based on) NSO (data.) More than enough, even exceeded the requirement of law,” Carillo said.

At present, the North District has 680,000 residents while the South District has 780,000 residents.

Carillo will run under Team Rama for the South District. Like the mayor, he used to be a member of the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan before he bolted to join Mayor Michael Rama. —/JMO (FREEMAN)