Cebu City Council sessions will still be held on Tuesdays

Cebu City Council session on Aug. 13, 2019. |CDND photo by Delta Dyrecka Letigio

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Council’s regular sessions will continue to be held on Tuesdays every week despite the unanimous decision of the council members to move the sessions on Wednesdays.

The majority floor leader, Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, said as much as they would want to hold the sessions on Wednesdays to give more time for the council members to study the agenda, their internal rules prohibit them to do so.

According to the ratified internal rules of the 15th Sangguniang Panglungsod, the sessions cannot be changed within one year of their inauguration and one year before the next local elections.

Despite the unified desire for the City Council to move the sessions one day later, Garcia said they would have to follow the internal rules.

“There is a provision in the internal rules that said it needs two-thirds vote (to change the day of the session) which we can muster because all of us wants to change the day, but in the same provision it says ‘provided that within the first year it will not change.’ So we will have to wait for next year,” said Garcia.

As respect to the internal rules that they had ratified upon their inauguration, Garcia said the council would keep the sessions on Tuesday and would attempt again to amend it in July 2020.

Read more: Labella proposes P10.4-B budget for Cebu City in 2020

On the council’s next regular session, on November 26, 2019, the council is set to approve the Annual Investment Program (AIP) for the 2020 annual budget worth P10.4 billion, and another AIP for the P118 million supplemental budget No. 3 for 2019.

Read more: Garcia assures Cebu City 2020 budget will be approved

The third supplemental budget is for the Christmas cash gift of the Cebu City Hall regular and casual employees. /dbs