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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Thursday, May 11, 2017
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BACOLOD City – And the word war continues.
Councilors Wilson Gamboa Jr. and Caesar Distrito continued to trade accusations over proposed revisions to an ordinance regulating e-cigarettes.
Yesterday, both delivered privilege speeches filled with iterations of their previous statements and criticisms of each other’s conduct as Sangguniang Panlungsod members.
Gamboa, who earlier accused Distrito of “copying” a 2014 ordinance they both authored, pushed further — he said he is reviewing other ordinances Distrito authored for “any possible intellectual dishonesty and misconduct.”
He also wrote the Department of the Interior and Local Government to seek “clarification and legal opinion.”
Gamboa authored City Ordinance No. 08-14-684 (E-Cigarettes Ordinance), passed on Aug. 27, 2014. Distrito was his coauthor.
Distrito wanted it revised. He introduced the Revised E-Cigarettes Regulation Ordinance, which was passed on second reading.
Gamboa described his colleague’s move as “dishonest, cheating and stealing from other people’s ideas and achievements, and taking and grabbing credit from other people’s hard work.”
Whatever changes in the 2014 ordinance Distrito introduced were mere amendments and did not constitute a new measure, Gamboa insisted.
Gamboa claimed he did his “best” to explain this “main legal issue” to his colleague in April, but to no avail. He thus urged the city council to settle the issue by “defining an amendment and a revision.”
“There is nothing illegal in ‘copying’ provisions verbatim…I just want to place such in its proper context and right perspective based exactly on correct legal definitions and use,” Gamboa said.
Meanwhile Distrito accused Gamboa of “disrespecting tradition” by bringing the issue to the press instead of containing the debate within “the four corners of this august hall.”
Distrito also insisted he has not stolen any ideas from anyone.
Citing Sections 175 and 176 of the Intellectual Property Code, he said “laws, ordinances or debates” are not protected by the Copyright Law.
“You cannot say someone stole your idea when it can be used by everybody else, much more by the body who enacted it,” he said. “It (ordinance) is now the property of the state, and this can be disposed of in accordance with the rules or procedures of the land.”
Distrito also said his proposed ordinance included “10 new provisions” and revised five provisions and removed one from the existing ordinance.
“The (proposed) ordinance, therefore, is a revision and not just an ordinary amendatory ordinance,” he stressed.
Among the “substantial differences” the proposed ordinance had with the original were: specific provisions on the prohibition of e-cigarette advertisements; creation of a “trust fund” and how it shall be used; amendments on penalties, clarifications on community service and exemption of minors from criminal prosecution; and creation of a task force and inclusion of health organization representatives in the technical working group, Distrito previously said.
Earlier he described Gamboa’s statements as “libelous” and “below-the-belt.”
“I have never been arrogant. I never used my profession as a lawyer just to mock or to show how inferior other people are,” Distrito said in his speech. “I never lied to anybody in this august body or fabricated stories just to make what I say believable, unlike somebody I know.”/PN
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