Some members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Bacolod City have requested for an executive-legislative caucus to be held Saturday for the Mayor to clarify the takeover of the Bacolod port and other related matters.

Eight councilors endorsed a resolution Thursday to hold a joint caucus on March 25 because there are clarifications they want to seek from Mayor Evelio Leonardia, particularly about the takeover of the port operation Bacolod Councilor Lyndon Caña yesterday said.

He also said there are even "theories" emerging that BREDCO may be allowed to bid again under the rectified terms and conditions if it wants to continue operating the port, Caña said.

"This is just the view of some members of the council, that is why we want to debate on it to resolve the matter as soon as possible," he said. He said he believes the operation of the port should go to the private sector.

He also said he hopes the other members of the SP will give the proposed "takeover ordinance" a chance.

Caña, together with SP members Greg Gasataya, Jude Thaddeus Sayson, Dindo Ramos and Homer Bais had proposed an ordinance providing for the basic policies, guidelines, rules and procedures for the takeover by the city of the unfinished reclamation project and port operations at the Reclamation Area of Bacolod City.

Caña said this has been discussed in an attempt to resolve it since last year, yet but nothing came out of it. BREDCO was invited to the SP during the CRRA review which lasted for six months and the Mayor already gave it a 60-day negotiation but BREDCO and the city could not agree, he said.

How can mediation or arbitration work when BREDCO has now issued a statement that Bacolod City does not own the port? And how much indignity and for how long should the city take this kind of attitude from BREDCO? He asked.

Caña said the review of the contract should have been done in 2000 but it was not done by the city administration then. By the time it was reviewed in 2005, the issues, problems, violations, etc., had accumulated, he said, but it is not the SP members' fault.

In fact the present set of councilors have to do the difficult job of weeding through years and years of history and documents that have piled up and they are just doing the job they are called to do, and to review it and to find out if the Comprehensive Revise Reclamation Agreement and City Ordinance 157 have been complied with, he said.*CGS

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