Mindanaotoday.com | VMLP amends bylaws for check and balance
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – To ensure transparency and accountability in the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines, roughly 99 percent of the organization’s 1,534 membership has ratified on Friday, January 27, amendments to the 35-year-old VMLP Constitution and Bylaws.
“This is to provide check and balance,” said VMLP Interim National President Dean Anthony Domalanta (vice mayor of San Mariano, Isabela) in a press forum during a two-day Mindanao Congress at the Mallberry Hotel in Cagayan de Oro that was participated in by 131 delegates.
Domalanta said that aside from the president and executive officers, VMLP members will be electing – for the first time – the national chairman and board officers during the 27th National Convention at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Pasay City on February 21.
This, he said, is one of amendments in the VMLP CBL where the national chairman would be the presider of the national board, the policy-making body of the organization, while president and executive officers would oversee program and project implementations.
With the amended CBL, the 17 regional and 81 provincial VMLP chapters would be well represented in the VMLP national board and working committees.
He said that in the past, the VMLP used to have a “unicameral” form of governance where the “legislative and executive” functions were fused into one, with the president as presider of the national board and head of the executive board, overseeing the working committees.
The VMLP generates more than P46 million from the P30,000 term-membership fees (three years) of its member-vice-mayors nationwide, aside from membership fees being collected at the chapter level, as stipulated under Memorandum Circular 2022-067 of the Department of Interior and Local Government.
From this, the VMLP provides medical, health and legal assistance to its members; professional development, capability-building and trainings programs; and calamity assistance to local governments, among others.
“All the 131 vice mayors from Mindanao voted ‘yes’ to the amendments or 100 percent,” said VMLP Region 10 chairman Roy Macua (vice mayor of Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental), the convenor of Mindanao Congress, adding that the turnout was also 100 percent in Visayas, but was 97 percent in Luzon.
Macua, who is on his third term as vice mayor and had served as VMLP Region 10 secretary-general, said elections in their organization have always been collegial, hence candidates for regional and national positions run unopposed.
He said that the previous 17 officers at the VMLP National Board, the number would increase by more than 60, including the various committees that would be created because of the amendments to the CBL.
But he does not expect a change in the practice of national leadership in the VMLP being rotated among three island-grouping.
With the immediate past president (2019-2021) from Mindanao, former Vice Mayor Donnabel Joy Mejia of Magsaysay, Davao del Sur and the incumbent Domalanta (2022-2025) from Luzon, the successor after the 2025 elections would be from the Visayas. (MT)
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