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[av_heading heading=’Bacolod dad mulls rap vs colleague’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Thursday, May 4, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Councilor Caesar Distrito considers filing a criminal charge against colleague Wilson Gamboa Jr. for “libelous” comments on his proposed revisions to an ordinance regulating e-cigarettes.
“Dishonest, cheating and stealing of other people’s ideas and achievements and taking/grabbing credit [for] other people’s hard work” was how Gamboa described Distrito’s proposal to revise City Ordinance (CO) No. 08-14-684 (E-Cigarettes Ordinance).
The terms Gamboa used, which had been reported by various press organizations, were “inappropriate,” Distrito stressed.
The proposed Revised E-Cigarettes Regulation Ordinance was up for third and final reading at the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
“What I did was based on law,” Distrito insisted. “I don’t want to stoop down to his (Gamboa) level…but I am studying my legal option to file a criminal case against him for using those words.”
Gamboa was the “main author” of CO No. 08-14-684, which was approved on Aug. 27, 2014. Distrito was a coauthor.
Whatever changes Distrito introduced were mere amendments and did not constitute a new measure, Gamboa claimed.
Gamboa’s statements were “libelous” and “below-the-belt,” Distrito said.
But despite all that Gamboa said, Distrito would welcome the former as a coauthor in the proposed Revised E-Cigarettes Regulation Ordinance. And he might not press any charge if Gamboa issues a public apology.
For his part, Gamboa insisted there was “nothing libelous in my statement.”
“I never claimed ownership of the ordinance, neither did I invoke the issue of Intellectual Property Rights,” said Gamboa. “I said ‘stealing of ideas and achievements and taking credit for [them].’”
“Works of the government can be used without authority from the government,” Distrito earlier said in a statement, citing the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, “and laws and ordinances and other legislative works are not covered by Copyright Law.”
He also explained that his proposal was a “revision” measure and not just “amendatory.”
An amendatory ordinance may apply when there is “only one or two sections [to be] amended,” while a revision ordinance is necessary for “substantial or numerous sections and topics to be amended,” Distrito said./PN
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