Mayor’s special boards under council scrutiny

The Cebu City Council is reviewing  the composition of and budget for special bodies under the office of the mayor.

Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young said the councilors want to stop  the sending of proxies instead of appointed members to the meetings of the city’s 62 commissions, boards and councils.

“The reason these persons are  there is because of their knowledge,” Young said.

“This (sending representatives) has to be changed because it defeats the purpose of the ordinance when you only send somebody else to attend the meetings on your behalf.”

He said many commissions are not working  because members, many of whom sit on different board, are not really interested.

“We should put there people who are interested,” the vice mayor said.

Councilor Margot Osmeña said the council will also look into the honoraria of commission members, who mostly receive P500 for attending meetings.

Young said members assigned to  technical commissions like the People’s Law Enforcement Board (Pleb) and who have more work  should be given  a bigger honorarium.

Mayor Michael Rama now heads 16 of   22 special bodies that were revamped.

“How can you attend to all that?” Young said.

“If he (Rama) wants to chair all those (commissions/committees), good riddance to him.”

Councilor Nida Cabrera, chairperson of the council’s environment committee, said she is worried about the effects of the revamp on members of the Cebu City Solid Waste Management Board who come from people’s and nongovernment organizations.

She said a revamp may affect their preparations for Rama’s plan to shut down the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill on Oct. 1.

Tessie Fernandez of Lihok Filipina, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the barangay Luz association, which promotes recycling, were removed from the board and replaced by Treasurer Island Packaging, Wilson Tan  from the recycling industry and lawyer Gloria Ramos.

Cabrera said she and the  former board members already  planned where to divert the city’s wastes and what to do with wastes that remain in the landfill.

“The problem now is how to implement since there are new board members,” Cabrera told Cebu Daily News.

Asked how changes in the composition of special bodies would affect the city’s programs, Rama said “that will be my responsibility.”

“Appointing somebody you trust is important… and they should be doing their jobs,” Rama said.

He said his chairmanship of the special bodies and assignment of representatives is provided for in the  ordinances that created the commissions.

Rama also defended his decision to name his political supporter businessman Renato Mercado as representative in the Cebu City Mining Regulatory Commission and the Cebu City Community Scouts Commission.

Mercado replaced Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. as head of the mining commission.

Rama said Mercado was in the best position to lead the mining commission because he lives in the uplands where mining operations are conducted.

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