Reduction of electric bill among Archival’s accomplishments as VM

IN his two months as acting vice mayor and presiding officer of the Cebu City Council, Councilor Nestor Archival has accomplished some of his seven-point agenda of office, including reduction of the legislative building’s electrical and water bills.

Archival sat again as a member of the council yesterday during their regular session while Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella also resumed his post as presiding officer after the two served as acting vice mayor and acting mayor respectively for the last two months.

Also during yesterday’s session, Councilor Philip Zafra, who heads the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), commended Labella for his leadership when Mayor Michael Rama was preventively suspended for 60 days.

In his accomplishment report, Archival said the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) bill for city hall’s legislative building in December 2015 was P516,851. By January this year, he said the same building only had a bill of P443,957.

“Basing on the said data, a reduction of Php 72,894.41 or more or less 14 percent reduction of electrical cost,” he said in his report.

As an environmental advocate, Archival earlier said he wanted to reduce the energy and water use in the legislative building by at least five percent.

But Archival failed to reduce it the water bill. In December, they had a bill of P19,549 but this went up to P21,514 in January.

He explained that based on his talk with the building administrator, the legislative building has a lot of leaks and broken faucets, thus the increase of P1,964.

On his plan to help address problems on traffic and concerns by the police, he said he already had meetings with the Cebu City Police Office on creating measure for public safety as well as purchasing speed guns.

He also reported that the city has obligated P662,41 to repair the damaged wastewater treatment facility in the Cebu City Jail.

As for addressing urban poor concerns, he said the council was able to repass the one-year moratorium ordinance on demolitions within the city. But this was vetoed by Labella and the council wasn’t able to muster the needed votes to override the veto.

In terms of improving the council’s functions, Archival said he was able to give awards to some councilors for their performance like having no absences and passing the most number of resolutions and ordinances.

In his time as vice mayor, he said he also approved six ordinances, 230 resolutions and 37 committee reports.

He admitted though that the most challenging part of his stint was when he’s caught in the crossfire among councilors with opposing views and opinions on certain issues.

“That’s why I would normally call for a recess to calm everybody down,” he said, adding that his time as vice mayor was a good training for him.

Archival is running for vice mayor against Labella who’s seeking reelection this coming May.