Egay Uy THE override by the city council of Mayor Moreno’s veto of the ordinance that repealed the “sharing law” provisions of the Traffic Code literally changed the rules of the game at mid-point, on the terms of the obstructionists. The rule at first was for proponents of measures that are brought before the city council to present “convincing evidence” of the need of the requested or proposed appropriation through tons of documents. Then all of a sudden, the proponent of the repealing ordinance, through mere comments of a few who are not motorists, proposed a repeal of the sharing provisions, on the pretext that apprehending officers (traffic aides of the RTA, traffic police of the Cocpo, and deputized volunteers of reputable NGOs such as the CRCD, the Eagles, React and several other groups including barangay police groups) were wantonly apprehending traffic rule violators because of the “sharing law.” Then, he offered another form of incentives to the apprehending officers which is an impossible course of action because of the castration of budget proposals. Clearly, the intent was to cripple the operations of the RTA-TFHD in the hope that the people of Cagayan de Oro will blame the traffic office for disorderly streets.  And it is also interesting to note who voted to override the veto. As soon as the Office of the City Treasurer will have issued more Traffic Citation Tickets to the RTA, and to the other offices and organizations tasked to implement traffic rules and regulations, then apprehensions will continue to be persistent sans the sharing law. It’s as clear as that!
  • •
The news about the kin not being keen on filing a case was a welcome note.  Let me briefly share a ruling of the Supreme Court in Typoco v. Gonzales dated July 23, 2013 that, “The concept of security of tenure however, labors under a variation for primarily confidential employees due to the basic concept of a ‘primarily confidential’ position.” “Serving at the confidence of the appointing authority, the primary confidential employee’s term of office expires when the appointing authority loses trust in the employee.” “When this happens, the confidential employee is not ‘removed’ or ‘dismissed’ from office; his term merely ‘expires’ and the loss of trust and confidence is the ‘just cause’ provided by law that results in the termination of employment.”   (Egay Uy is a lawyer, city hall consultant, and chairman of Task Force Hapsay Dalan.)