[] Like Cebu City Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Iloilo City Council's presiding officer and city vice mayor, Julie Grace "Love-Love" Baronda, is being stripped of the functions that VMs used to exercise: powers that regular councilors have, such as sponsoring measures, delivering privilege speeches, or participating in floor debates.
[] Like what Cebu City Council's majority did in July 2026, the majority in Iloilo City Council seeks to amend, this September 2026, its IRP or Internal Rules of Procedure in order to limit the presiding officer's functions as member of the city legislature.
Both Councils share reason for move
The Cebu City Council argued it was simply "correcting a wrong practice of many years."
The Iloilo City Council said provisions of the Local Government Code and the Constitution, along with Supreme Court precepts in decided cases -- which DILG uses to support its Opinion #95 of 2925 -- are "mandates" and "strict legal necessity."
Under the now-clearly-defined roles of vice mayor of a city or vice governor of a province, the No. 2 high officials "act primarily as the impartial presiding officers of the local legislature and do not hold the full rights of regular councilors or board members."
Cebu City politics had a lot to do with it
Events tied to political rivalry in fact "triggered" the moves in Cebu.
In Cebu City, Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña has been "highly critical" of Mayor Nestor Archival though he has also opposed some moves of BOPK's rivals Barug and Panaghiusa, the coalition that dominates the City Council.
VM Tomas is allied with Mayor Nestor under the BOPK administration and yet lobs insults, wrapped as critiques, at the mayor.
Not content with Osmeña's "help," the Sanggunian majority -- the coalition of two parties that had failed to win the two highest positions in the 2025 election -- has gone after the presiding officer so as to restrict his activities within the City Council during sessions.
Played much earlier at Capitol...
At Cebu Province, the political strategy was pulled seven years ago.
Starting 2019, when Gwen Garcia of One Cebu Party returned to the Capitol as governor but Hilario "Junjun" Davide III of the opposing party won vice governor, the One-Cebu-dominated Provincial Board amended its rules to strip the presiding officer of regular PB member functions.
RELATED:
Seares: PB removes limits on vice guv as [C1] presiding officer, August 5, 2025.
Vice Guv Soco and VM Osmeña cannot relinquish job of presiding officer, April 9, 2026.
VM Tomas Osmeña asks if the vice mayor's role is that of a "clerk," April 23, 2026.
Cebu City Council and Provincial Board rules of procedure violate the law, May 21, 2026.
Cebu City Council strips VM Osmeña of functions, July 10, 2026.
For two terms of the governor and vice governor belonging to rival parties, Junjun Davide was gagged.
He didn't complain, by lawsuit or in public forums, using it only on the 100th day of his first term, as excuse for not having done anything ("because I was gagged").
The "usual" powers of the vice guv in his capacity as a member were restored only when Pam Baricuatro ousted Gwen in a massive upset but lost to One Cebu in the race for PB members. Pam has controlled the office of the governor and the executive departments except the local legislature.
... As PB did it differently
The PB majority handled the VG-functions issue in a different manner: They re-passed the IRP but minus the provisions that tied down then vice guv Junjun to his presiding-officer chair.
Now it is the minority -- assuming there's a functioning minority in the PB -- that can cite DILG Opinion #95 when or if it calls out Vice Guv and PB Presiding Officer Glenn Soco against performing any of the prohibited functions under DILG Opinion #95.
Which the Cebu City and Iloilo City vice mayors would not be allowed to do under their respective IRPs.
Options for Love-Love, Tomas
Iloilo's Love-Love Baronda or her legislative initiatives are "good as dead," according to her enemies, from the city mayor (also with a kilometric name: Raisa Maria Lourdes S. Treñas-Chu) to the councilors who dominate the Iloilo City Council.
At the Cebu City Council, Tomas Osmeña hopes for a favorable ruling from DILG: reverse totally the DILG opinion of 2025. To do that though, DILG has to go against Supreme Court rulings affirming the limits on the functions of the vice mayor/vice governor as a local legislator.
He "would not be silenced," Tomas had vowed. No, he would not be, not at any public forum of his choice, except in the Cebu City Council where the law's gag and the legislature's internal rules are in place.
That right is also available to Love-Love. Her access to Iloilo City's media has not been limited; so far no complaint from her about the press in that city.