I regretted to have missed the action. It would have been a great experience to attend the public hearing held by the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Cebu City, last week, and, more importantly, listen to the arguments, pro and con, on the proposed ordinance crafted by Hon. Hans Abella, James Cuenco, Mary Ann de los Santos and Dave Tumulak, all Team Rama councilors, to repeal Ordinance No. 2332, sponsored and passed by councilors whose election could only, and I truly mean only, happen because of their affiliation with a group called BOPK. That ordinance disallowed anyone from initiating any negotiation on the South Road Properties.
There was initial report that reached me, a day before the scheduled public hearing, that wise men either planned to appear at the session and make a stand or were invited for their valuable inputs. I could have gained meaningful insights into the thoughts of men, some of whom must have a hand in the ordinance, the repeal of which was sought by the Team Rama councilors. It just happened that the officials of the local government unit of Jagna, Bohol, jostled me away from that public hearing and lured me to their own pro-active function on effective local governance.
While I missed the action, accounts from people who were present in the forum, gave me still some degree of learning.
According to my sources, those who spoke in the sanggunian session discussed heavily on the marketing side of the huge city assets. Their positions were, somehow, convincing. To them, the timeliness of the act of disposing parcels of lots on the reclaimed land is most crucial. When should the city sell some parcels of this huge asset is the question. That was where they focused their expositions.
But, that was not the thunder that twitched my ear. The arguments of Messrs. Tomas Osmeña, Joel Mari Yu, and Nigel Paul Villarete, against the proposed repealing ordinance, had their worth in real estate marketing. I could understand their position beyond their actual political color. The same was equally true to the pragmatic and ponderous stand of a more independent observer in Atty. Eleuterio "Amay" Ong Vano, who apparently favored the Team Rama sponsored measure.
The information that Atty. Joey Daluz, a proclaimed Rama campaign mogul, sallied to the floor, albeit belatedly, and attempted to take the wind behind the draft ordinance was a dire revelation. It betrayed the legal schism within the administration of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama. Without his saying it, Atty. Daluz, sounded more like a squeaking impertinence of a BOPK councilor, that he really was, within the Rama camp.
Take this. Perhaps, designed to be really unable to progress himself effectively, Atty. Daluz, according to my sources, registered a request to speak in that public hearing. Because people thought that he was, (he really is) a part of the Rama administration, the perception was that he would speak in favor of the proposed ordinance. When he stood up, it was already the time for the announced oppositors of the measure to take the floor. In other words, he was considered out of time.
It was then that he made a buffoon of himself. He, a vital cog in the Rama administration, manifested to speak against the very measure that would have favored the Rama government. A Rama man fighting a proposed ordinance that would have benefitted the Rama administration! From where I sit, I call it a slap against the mayor, by a mayor's man.
Anyway, when asked why he was not in favor of the measure prepared by Team Rama councilors to repeal Ordinance No. 2332, Atty. Daluz skewed logic to its core. As if pronouncing a ruling that only a judge, in our system of law, is authorized to do, he said that the Ordinance No. 2332, the one sought to be repealed, was "ultra vires" and therefore, invalid, even if he was a member of that very council that passed it in July 2012. Perhaps, to add meat where there was none, he announced further that there was no need to repeal it specially that he planned to contest it in court. Whew!