Alleba Politics

When the 15th Davao City Council first convene, the idea of re-districting Davao City into five instead of only three legislative district was already brought up. Last week, Councilor Peter Laviña delivered a privilege speech regarding the issue.

According to his speech, now is the time to redistribute Davao City’s legislative districts mainly because the city’s population has to grown to approximately 1.3 million. The last census (conducted in 1980) before the 1987 Constitution puts the Davao City population at only 600,000+. This is the main basis for dividing Davao City into three legislative districts. Article VI Section 5 (4) of the 1987 Constitution states that

Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment of legislative districts based on the standards provided in this section.

There has been no such reappointment of legislative districts after the 1990, 1995, and 2000 census despite the rapid population growth in the city. According to Councilor Laviña and several other councilors, the City needs to have at least two more districts for representation to be proportionate to the population.

The councilors contend that this reappointment of districts would significantly help the financial woes of the city. Because while we are greatly contributing to the national treasury with our 1.3 M population, we are receiving only enough for the population of three districts. There are definite flaws in the appropriation of budget from the national government to the local government units and that’s yet another issue that should be addressed. Meanwhile, the councilors are pushing for the reappointment of districts to increase the budget for the City. And on that point I agree.

What I question is, how come this is only being aggressively campaigned and worked for now? Is it because most of our current city councilors are on their third term and the reappointment of districts would give them a new chance to run for office? I just hope that this proposal and its implementation will not be rushed in time for the 2010 elections.

Nonetheless, I think this proposal is worth supporting. It’s going be a lot of hard work for our local officials, especially deciding which barangays go where, and of course the re-organization of local units will be required. It’s definitely going to be a headache for the entire city. But if it’s for the improvement of the city, why not, right?

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Tags: davao+city, districts, reappointment+of+districts, peter+lavina