Cebu City braces for transition of mayors

A team at City Hall has already started working on the smooth transition of the current administration to the new one. | CDN file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Hall administration is preparing for the transition of the chief executives from outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña to incoming Mayor Edgardo Labella, which is set on June 30.

This developed after the Local Governance Transition Team (LGTT) had already started coordinating with the different departments of City Hall so that there would be a “smooth transition” between the current administration and the next one.

Nigel Paul Villarete, LGTT vice chairperson and Cebu City administrator, said this during a press briefing on May 17 at the Cebu city hall.

Villarete said that they were working through the process provided by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) including reports on past accomplishments and the filling out of necessary forms.

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“It is actually fortunate that the memorandum order of the DILG is very specific on what would be done and be prepared. These are very voluminous documents, very comprehensive. Everything that is supposed to represent what was worked on in the city in the past,” said Villarete.

He said that accomplishing the needed requirements for transition might be easier for some departments and might be harder for others.

For this reason, Villarete said that they would be coordinating properly to finish all requirements before June 30, especially in the City Accounting because of their dependence to the Commission on Audit (COA) reports.

He also said that once some important requirements had been accomplished in accordance with the DILG memorandum, the LGTT would invite the incoming administration’s representatives to discuss the official transition, and how to go about it smoothly on their receiving end.

Specific program offices with frontline services are encouraged to make their own reports as soon as possible so as services would not stop by June 30 because these services would be critical.

He said because of this, these frontline services might have an earlier transition compared to the rest of City Hall.

“The main purpose of this exercise is to prevent that there may be services that will be disrupted. When you change administration from one to the next, no services will be stopped,” said Villarete.

Read more: Mayor Labella promises ‘inclusive’ government, VM Rama returns to city hall

Meanwhile, it would also be expected that some changes would happen in Cebu city hall once Mayor-elect Edgardo Labella would assume his post as the city’s chief executive..

Labella earlier said that he would be appointing allies to some of the positions in City Hall, although it might not be until a year later because of the one-year prohibition for reemployment to City Hall.

Labella also assigned Lawyer Floro Casas, Jr., his senior partner in his law firm, to be his city administrator.

The appointments of allies will be discussed by the Partido-Barug PDP Laban leaders which includes incoming Vice Mayor Michael Rama.

Expecting to lose their posts, allies of Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) have already chose to resign from their positions in City Hall.

Read more: Cabrera to be back as Cenro chief in July

This included City Environment and Natural Office (Cenro) Head Nida Cabrera who opted for retirement before the change of administration would happen.

She said she would like to allow the new administration to set up its own structure in the Cenro./dbs