DEAD POLITICS

Early this week and several days thereafter, the topic on visiting wakes and burials came into the main menu in the local airlanes with heavy political undertones.

Politicians accused one another of using the dead in politicking. To be specific, Vice Mayor Toto Veloso twitted Mayor Dan Lim for the latter’s announcement that taking cue from the advise of Makati City Mayor Jojo Binay on the advantage of going to wakes and burials, he would also be visiting wakes from now on.

Veloso said Lim’s statement clearly manifested that the city mayor is politicking. The city vice-mayor said he had been visiting wakes and going to burials even before he was elected.

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The city mayor retorted back that while he is known for not going to wakes and burials, he would go to wakes during daytime when only the immediate family members are around.

Lim declared that this will be an exact opposite to Veloso’s style of going to wakes during night time when there are a lot of people around who join the vigil or ask how many voters are there in the bereaved family.

True to form, Lim also committed to provide canopies, chairs and snacks during burials aside from providing caskets if necessary. Let’s see if this dead politics works.

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ADVISORY. The HNU College of Law will be marking its Law Days starting this Friday morning with “The Great Debate” on the proposition of exempting oil products from the expanded value-added tax (EVAT) to be held at the university gym. This will be followed by an oratorical contest.

In the afternoon, RTC Judge Gabriel Ingles of Cebu City will be the lecturer during the Dean Mumar Memorial Lecture at the audio-visual hall. The honoring of new lawyers in the evening will be held at the MetroCenter Hotel with Atty. Mercedita Acosta of the Public Attorney’s Office as the guest of honor.

The Law Days will be capped with a sportsfest on Saturday morning at the university gym to be participated in by the law students and faculty members led by Dean Tomas D. Abapo Jr.

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SP UPDATES. Although published elsewhere in this issue are the three major pieces of legislation passed by the 10th Sangguniang Panlungsod last Friday, we shall enumerate them again so you won’t miss.

The minority bloc tried but failed to stop the passage of these legislations by voting against our motion to consider them as special orders of the day (SOD) as per the official letter sent by Mayor Dan Lim.

These are the Proposed Resolution No. 65-08 authorizing the city mayor to negotiate and apply for a loan of P450 million with the Development Bank of the Philippines, Proposed Resolution No. 71-08 ratifying the loan agreement between DBP and the city government in the amount of P8 million for the re-fleeting program and the ordinance providing for Supplemental Budget No. 3 in the amount of more than P22 million for the re-fleeting program, the rice subsidy for city hall officials and employees and the marriage milestones.