BAGUIO CITY – The chairman of the City Council Committee on Laws and Human Rights is pushing for the creation and strengthening of an oversight committee that will be empowered to oversee the implementation of approved ordinances and resolutions to ensure the effectivity and efficiency of the enacted local laws.
Councilor Faustino A. Olowan, committee chairman, said that the local legislative body was able to enact numerous ordinances and approved hundreds of other resolutions even tracing back to the early 1940s, thus, the need to create an oversight committee to review and make the necessary recommendations on how to go about the implementation of some of the approved local laws.
“The proposed oversight committee has to make a thorough review of our ordinances and resolutions and come out with its recommendations on how to deal with the outdated ones and further improve the implementation of the ones that are still relevant to the fast changing times,” Councilor Olowan stressed.
The alderman pointed out that the oversight committee will also have to work on the immediate codification of all ordinances and resolutions, including those that have been passed by the barangays, wherein the same will have to be displayed in conspicuous places in the different parts of the city to serve as an information guide to the residents and visitors alike.
According to him, there are some ordinances that tend to overlap with existing barangay ordinances that is why it is important that the local government create an oversight committee that will focus its attention in formulating a comprehensive review of all legislative actions of the local legislative body and put things in their proper perspective to avoid confusion on the part of those who will be enforcing the provisions of the said local laws.
Councilor Olowan asserted that part of the duties and responsibilities of the oversight committee will be to come out with the needed recommendations on how to iron out conflicting ordinances that were crafted by the previous and present batch of local legislators so that there will be a consolidated version of local laws dealing with certain concerns of the city.
Under the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7160 or the Local Government Code of the Philippines, the local legislative body is empowered to enact ordinances and resolutions that are beneficial to the greater interest of the populace while the local chief executive is mandated to implement whatever edict that has been passed and signed into law for the said purpose.
Ordinances are said to be local laws that are permanent in nature which provides specific penalties for violations of such measures while resolutions are merely expression of sentiments by the local government on issues and concerns that affect the majority of the populace.
Olowan also proposed that ordinances and resolutions should be posted in the different websites and other social media accounts of the local government for the widest form of dissemination that will guide the residents and visitors in dealing with whatever situations that will confront them while doing their daily routine in life.
He appealed to residents and visitors to make themselves aware of existing ordinances that have been adopted to prevent them from being penalized for their violations in the future.
By Dexter A. See