Council to skip Rama address

CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama will deliver his State of the City Address (SOCA) at the Plaza Sugbu at 3 p.m. on Monday.

He will report on his past year’s accomplishments and plans for 2013.

The event includes blessing a new senior citizens park along M.C. Briones Street across City Hall and distributing keys of brand-new vehicles which he promised to the city’s 80 barangay captains last year.

As is their practice since they parted ways with him in June last year, former partymates in the City Council will skip the speech.

Mayor Joy Augustus Young said he and 15 councilors allied with the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) agreed not to attend.

“The council felt that it will just be a waste of time having to listen to all his lies. The mayor will just wash his hands (of problems in the city) and instead blame Rep. Tomas Osmeña for his failures in governance,” Young told Cebu Daily News.

Young said the council won’t have an inaugural session this year since there will be no changes in committee chairmanships.

The tradition of a SOCA and inaugural session on July 1  was stopped last year, shortly after Rama broke away from the BO-PK.

Rama last year delivered his SOCA at the Plaza Sugbu. The council had a July 5 session in which Rama’s allies were stripped of their committee chairmanships.