The younger brother of Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas will run for councilor in District 5.
Patrick Michael Vargas, the lawmaker’s chief of staff, said he is filing his certificate of candidacy next week before the Commission on Elections office within city hall to succeed outgoing councilors who have served the 37-member city council in the past nine years.
During a concert organized by the older Vargas on Friday night, the Sponge Cola band wowed the young audience in District 5’s Novaliches area.
“The concert is for the youth asking them to stay away from [illegal] drugs. Be hooked on music [instead],” Patrick Vargas told Manila Standard.
“People ask me why I’d want to be a councilor, following the footsteps of my brother. It is not about the title or the salary. It is about serving the people,” he added.
The Vargas brothers are running under the slate of Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte, who is gunning for the mayoral post in 2019.
Meanwhile, the city government, under the administration of Mayor Herbert Bautista, continues its thrust of developing culture and arts with the reorganization of the city’s Culture and Arts Council.
Bautista recently signed Quezon City Council Ordinance 2741-2018, amending Ordinance 1662-2006 entitled “An ordinance creating the Quezon City Culture and Arts Council,” specifically its provisions on its duties and responsibilities, offices, and funds.
The Quezon City Culture and Arts Council is composed of the City Mayor, the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Tourism, the Cultural Tourism Affairs Office, the City Planning Development officer, the Public Affairs and Information Services Office, and the City Budget Office.
The ordinance also named the QC Schools Division Office, the Commission on Higher Education, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, the Philippine Information Agency, the Quezon City Tourism Council, as well as local historical/heritage society, local museums, local artists groups, business sector or chamber of commerce, professional sector, academe, youth sector, indigenous people and cultural communities, and National Commission for Culture and Arts as representatives to the Council.
The duties and responsibilities of the Council now include the preparation of an annual plan on the city’s culture, arts, and cultural heritage consonant with the Philippine Development Plan for Culture and the Arts.
It also aims to ensure the protection, preservation, conservation, and promotion of local culture and historical heritage, to declare and maintain Local Heritage Zones, to establish a local registry of cultural properties, and to provide mechanisms for identification and assistance for qualified traditional folk artists to enable them to more freely share their skills to the community.
The city government shall appropriate P1 million for the promotion of local cultural heritage and another P1 million for each form of art that includes architecture and allied arts, cinema, dance, dramatic art, literary arts, music, and visual arts, the ordinance states.
Bautista said the QC government complies with its mandate to establish a local council whose purpose is the promotion of culture and arts under Sections 447,458 and 468 of the Republic Act No. 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991.
