What set off heated exchange
CEBU City Councilor Joel Garganera was delivering during a regular City Council session Tuesday (Oct. 13, 2026) a privilege speech on the city’s waste disposal crisis when Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña interrupted him.
The City has “no targets and timelines” in solving the crisis, Garganera said, and VM Osmeña has not yet come up with the solution he promised.
The councilor reminded the City Council that last May 28, 2026, VM Osmeña promised a solution -- a waste management plan -- in 60 days. It’s already 137 days (“more than four months”) after the promise was made, Garganera said and there’s no management plan yet.
As the councilor dunned on the pledge, Osmeña, seated beside the podium where Garganera was delivering his speech, tossed on the lectern the document that purportedly contained his plan. The video clip circulated didn’t catch Tomas’s alleged expletives.
A councilor critic of the VM, expressing dismay over the behavior, said the paper “gibundak ni Tomas,” apparently a bit exaggerated as it was only a few pages and couldn’t have slammed when dropped.
It was accompanied though with a raised, obviously angry voice disputing Garganera’s claim.
“Don’t interrupt me! Don’t do it!”
Thus the councilor lashed at the vice mayor -- who had gone down from the presiding officer’s rostrum and engaged in the activity of a councilor -- And Garganera got this retort from Osmeña: “I do what I want to do.”
All at once two issues surfaced, one leading to the other:
[] The ban on vice mayors of towns and cities, along with vice governors of provinces: They are prohibited from engaging in the work of councilors or board members. They cannot file resolutions and ordinances, head or join committees or engage in discussion or debate, even if they relinquish their seat as presiding officer. They can vote but only in case of a tie.
[] Unparliamentary conduct, of which Garganera accused Osmeña. The councilor said the VM had also interrupted him while he was speaking in several instances before. “Don’t do that” should’ve been “Don’t do that again.”
Not only “unparliamentary,” which was how Kons Joel described, after the session, VM Tomas’s behavior. It also violated the ban on councilor activities by vice mayors (or board member functions by vice governors), per DILG policy, which is based on the Local Government Code and Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Already included in the City Council’s Internal Rules of Procedure, the ban is apparently relaxed for Osmeña, until DILG will have scrapped its legal opinion of August 2025 by favoring VM Tomas’s stand.
Did Tomas make good his promise?
Kons Joel’s point, repeatedly made during the exchange, was that VM Tomas failed to submit a plan and if he did, he didn’t give it to the City Council.
The vice mayor at first said he gave it to the mayor (Nestor Archival Sr.) and later said he gave it to the City Council. Nobody bothered to check with the secretariat, which – recess or not – could’ve confirmed or belied the claim.
Confusion over date of submission
VM Tomas more than once cited the date January 29, 2026, which must appear on the paper/s he dumped on the City Council lectern, near Garganera’s face, “There, (it’s) there on paper.”
Yet on May 28 when Osmeña made the promise, he said “Mr. Chairman, I am asking for 60 days. I will come up with the solution. I’m working on something today…”
The transcript was flashed on the screen, supporting Kons Joel’s claim but apparently annoying VM Tomas.
If the VM had already made and submitted the solution/plan way back in January, why did he ask for 60 days when even as he spoke it must have been long done and even given already to the mayor, if not the City Council?
Was he fibbing about needing 60 days on the plan? Which he said is already begun (“I’m working on something today.”)
Doubling down on date, amount
When session resumed -- after the recess prompted by the verbal fireworks in the session hall -- and the VM was given time to air his side, Osmeña said, “I did this work. It was finished. It was dated Jan. 29 and that’s P250 million.” Which, parenthetically, had “disturbed” him because there was another proposal, “coming from this council, from the same source, it’s now P470 million.”
So the vice mayor has clung to Jan. 29, date of completion if not submission of the proposal and P250 million, the amount of the equipment and technology of VM Tomas’s “solution” to the garbage disposal system.
Mystery over origin of proposal
Before the week’s verbal skirmish, there was the fracas over who submitted the P470 million proposal.
Earlier, Mayor Archival denied it had come from him or his office. News media reports said Suki Trading Corp. through its president and CEO Engr. Victoriano Ocon sent a Sept. 22, 2026 letter of intent addressed to Mayor Archival, who then referred it to the City Council, a claim that the mayor later rejected.
Last Tuesday, VM Tomas, in his reply to Kons Garganera collecting on the VM’s promise, said the proposal came from the City Council. From whom? Not Osmeña, not Archival, who then?
Tomas said he “smelled” an anomaly, adding that the Sanggunian “reputation” is “at stake.”
Investigating the claimed submission to the City Council may lead to determining whether VM Tomas’s proposal was actually received by the secretariat and whether any councilor had access to it. It did not reach the City Council, Garganera told Osmeña more than once in their sparring session.