What good is a gavel?

A gavel is a funny little thing. Its job is simple. It settles the room, gives someone the floor, reminds others to wait their turn, and keeps the meeting going. Nothing dramatic about that. But in the Iloilo City Council, the gavel has suddenly become part of a much bigger question. The Vice Mayor can use it to recognize everyone else in the room, but under a proposed interpretation of the rules, she may not be able to put her own ideas before that same room. I have been trying to make sense of that.

The issue is whether Vice Mayor Lady Julie Grace Baronda may propose, author, or sponsor ordinances and resolutions. Her argument is not really that complicated. Section 49 of the Local Government Code says the Vice Mayor presides over the Council and votes only when there is a tie. Fair enough. But nowhere in that provision does it plainly say that she cannot propose or author a measure. Baronda is not asking for another vote. She is asking to be allowed to put an idea on the table. What happens to that idea afterward is still up to the Council.

That is an important difference. Baronda’s formal position, stripped of all the legal language, is basically this: if Congress did not expressly prohibit it, and the Supreme Court has not squarely prohibited it, why should a DILG legal opinion be used as an absolute ban? The Council committee has a different reading. It believes Section 49 should be interpreted strictly and that powers not given to the Vice Mayor should not simply be assumed. It also argues that a presiding officer must remain impartial. I can understand that. Anyone who has chaired a faculty meeting knows how awkward it can be to moderate an argument when you badly want to enter it yourself.

The committee also has jurisprudence to lean on. The Supreme Court has described a presiding officer as an “embodiment of impartiality.” But here is where I begin to hesitate. Javier v. Cadiao dealt mainly with the computation of votes, while Zamora v. Caballero involved quorum and the authority of a temporary presiding officer. Both cases matter, and the committee relies on them to support a broader restriction on the Vice Mayor’s participation. But neither squarely decided the question now facing Iloilo: Can a Vice Mayor propose, author, or sponsor a measure and leave the regular members to decide its fate? The committee believes the rulings logically lead to a prohibition. Perhaps they do. But that remains an interpretation of those rulings, not a Supreme Court decision directly answering that particular question.

The same caution applies to DILG Opinion No. 95, series of 2025. The committee itself acknowledges that the opinion is not law or a Supreme Court ruling. Its argument, however, is that the DILG is the government agency specializing in local governance, so its interpretation deserves considerable weight. That is a fair point. But persuasive is not the same as final. If the Local Government Code does not expressly prohibit the Vice Mayor from proposing a measure, and the Supreme Court has not squarely decided that precise question, I would hesitate to turn an administrative legal opinion into an absolute ban.

What really made me stop, though, was the recommendation involving Baronda’s earlier proposals. The committee wants measures she introduced, including those that had already gone through first reading, struck from the records so that a regular or ex-officio council member can introduce them again. Read that slowly. The proposal itself can apparently come back. The substance can survive. It might even eventually become law. But it needs another author. Somewhere between the first reading and the committee report, the problem seems to have become not only what was proposed, but who proposed it.

That would already raise eyebrows even without the politics around it. But there is politics around it. Plenty. Baronda belongs to the political opposition in a Council overwhelmingly controlled by the other camp. Councilor Sheen Mabilog is with her in that very small minority. The disagreements go beyond this issue, touching committees, budgets, and office resources. Some opposition supporters call it political bullying. The administration says it is simply part of governing.

I would still be careful with the word bullying. Not every decision that goes against someone is persecution. Budget cuts happen. Audits have their place. Political alliances fall apart, committees change, and yesterday’s allies can become today’s opponents. That is politics. The Council majority also has a legal position to defend, backed by a committee report and court rulings. Those arguments deserve to be heard fairly.

Still, when one side already holds almost all the votes, politics cannot simply be taken out of the picture. Sooner or later, the question is no longer just whether the majority can do this. You also begin to wonder why it feels the need to.

Baronda said some of her measures had already reached first reading. One proposed a three-digit emergency hotline. Another concerned water breaks during extreme heat. I do not know whether either deserves to become an ordinance. Maybe both need work. Maybe one is unnecessary. Maybe both are brilliant. That is precisely what deliberation is supposed to find out. The Council can amend them, send them back to committee, vote them down, or let them gather dust in a folder somewhere. With the numbers the majority has, defeating a Baronda proposal should not exactly require divine intervention.

So why not let the proposal stand or fall on its merits?

That question bothers me more than the Latin. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius sounds impressive across a session hall, but ordinary Ilonggos probably understand something simpler. Proposing is not passing. Writing your name on an ordinance does not make it law. The Vice Mayor cannot tap the gavel three times and suddenly announce, “Approved.” Other councilors still get to talk. They still get to object. Most importantly, they still get to vote.

The opposition is supposed to be inconvenient sometimes. That is almost the point. Democracy would be easy if everyone wore the same color, cheered for the same people, and agreed on everything. But that would hardly be democracy. A healthy majority does not need a quiet opposition. It needs one that occasionally forces it to explain itself. A good idea does not become a bad one because it came from the wrong political camp. The majority may still say no afterward. Eleven hands going up will settle that quickly enough.

I also understand why the person in the presiding chair cannot behave like one more combatant on the floor. There have to be limits. The chair calls for restraint, fairness, and some distance from the usual political wrestling. But restraint is one thing. Silence is another. There is surely room between allowing the Vice Mayor to dominate every debate and telling her that she cannot propose anything at all.

And that, I think, is the strongest part of Baronda’s case. She is not saying the DILG opinion or the court rulings should simply be ignored. She is asking whether the legal basis is clear enough to justify a total ban. The Code does not expressly say she cannot do it, and the Supreme Court has not squarely said so either. Whatever one thinks of Baronda politically, that seems fair to ask: Why close the door before the law clearly does?

For now, though, the majority already has what majorities usually want most: the votes. Baronda can propose ten ordinances tomorrow, and not one becomes law unless enough councilors agree with her. She may hold the gavel, but the gavel does not come with eleven votes.

And so I return to that little gavel. It is supposed to help people take turns, hear each other out, and eventually decide. It would be ironic if the same gavel became the reason the Vice Mayor could listen to everyone else but could no longer put an idea of her own on the table.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.