Appointed member completes Cotabato City council slate

COTABATO CITY – A councilor appointed last week by President Rodrigo Duterte to occupy a vacant seat in the city council reported for work on Tuesday.Councilor Japal Guiani III was appointed on January 18 by Duterte to complete the slate of the city council.The 33-year-old Guiani is son of an erstwhile mayor here, Japal, Jr., who died from an illness in September 2016 while in his last and third term as city chief executive.The city’s mayoral post was taken over by the late mayor’s younger sister, Vice Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, whose position as the city’s second highest elected official was assumed by councilor Graham Dumama.Dumama ranked first from among elected councilors having garnered most number of votes from among all aspirants for the 10 seats in the city council during last year's local electoral exercise.Dumama’s assumption as vice mayor created a vacancy in the city council, which has 10 elected members and a representative each from the association of 37 barangay chairpersons here and from the local indigenous non-Moro community.Halima Satol-Ibrahim, city information officer, on Wednesday said Guiani’s formal entry into the city council was made markedly conspicuous by his participation in its regular session last Tuesday. He hinted about his plan to update old ordinances, some approved more than a decade ago, as among his immediate concerns as city councilor, Satol-Ibrahim said.She said Guiani promised to focus on amending old ordinances to become comprehensively attuned to the current security, socio-economic, religious and cultural settings in the city.