ILOILO City – If House Bill 3074 becomes a law, this city would have two congressional districts.
Filed by Cong. Julienne Baronda in the House of Representatives, the bill is an iteration of previous bills filed by her predecessor, now mayor Jerry Treñas, which failed to prosper in the 15th and 16th congresses.
“Having two congressional districts is more advantageous to the city when it comes to projects,” said Baronda yesterday.
House Bill 3074 has been referred to the House Committee on Local Government.
Jaro, La Paz and Mandurriao would make up one congressional district while the other legislative district would be composed of the City Proper, Molo, Arevalo and Lapuz.
House Bill 3074 also calls the reapportioning of the composition of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. It would have 16 members – eight would come from each of the two new legislative districts.
In the 15th Congress, Treñas’ redistricting bill was approved in the Lower House but failed to get the Senate’s nod.
In the 16th Congress, it only hurdled third reading in the House.
One issue was the city’s population – it did not meet the minimum required population of 250,000 per district.
Baronda expressed confidence that this time the redistricting bill would prosper in the 18th Congress.
The 2015 census showed Iloilo City having a population of 447,992. Baronda said the population would have ballooned to 500,000 by this time.
She also cited a
Supreme Court decision stating that while “Section 5(3), Article VI of the
Constitution requires a city to have a minimum population of 250,000 to be
entitled to a representative, it does not have to increase its population by
another 250,000 to be entitled to an additional district.”
Baronda pointed, too, the case of Marikina City which was granted two
legislative districts even though the city’s population was only 424,150.
Baronda’s co-authors of House Bill 3074 are Iloilo 5th District’s Cong. Raul Tupas, Iloilo 2nd District’s Cong. Michael Gorriceta and Abang Lingkod party-list’s Cong. Joseph Stephen Paduano./PN
