Mandaue City Legal Office implements program to help reduce court cases of city gov’t

Lawyer John Eddu Ibañez, City Legal Office chief of Mandaue City, says the office works to help city hall departments in legal problems that their departments are facing. |Mary Rose Sagarino (CDN Digital File Photo)

MANDAUE CITY, Philippines — The Mandaue City Legal Office is visiting different departments of the city hall to provide legal aid.

This is the new program curently implemented by the office headed by Lawyer John Eddu Ibañez, city legal officer.

They give legal aid especially in the review of contracts and the implementation of rules and regulations in accordance with existing ordinances, among others.

TEAM first

 READ: New Mandaue city legal officer pushes for improvement in providing free legal aid

They first visited the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM) in which they were also able to discuss and give advise regarding apprehension, impounding of vehicles, and other concerns.

“Nindot kaayo ang outcome no kay naay mga questions nga dili gyud nila matubag as an office. Kahibawo sila sa balaod apan naa man guy interpretation sa balaod that you need the opinion of the city legal officer para mahimoan og saktong lakang,” said Ibañez.

(The outcome was good because there are questions that they cannot answer as an office. They know the law but there are interpretations of the law that you need the opinion of the city legal officer so that you can make the right move.)

Since, some offices have lawyers, they are opening their communication with them especially since all legal actions would be coursed through the city legal office.

Reduce court cases

Aside from answering questions of the offices on the legality of their actions, the purpose of the activity is to reduce court cases of the city government, he said.

Ibañez admitted that they received minor complaints against some offices because of the processes among others.

“We must be proactive instead of being reactive para ma lessen ang atoang court cases against city government….Dili ta muhuwat nga adunay dagko’ng reklamo,” he said.

(We must be proactive instead of being reactive so that we can lessen the court cases against the city government….We should not way for the bigger complaints.)

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