City uses Internet to deliver message

The city government has also embarked on using the Internet, particularly YouTube to deliver its message to the people.

The city has posted a video in the popular site showing Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Vice Mayor Rama, First Lady Margot Osmeña and other key officials and personnel of the City Hall narrating a Chinese story entitled “The Old Man and the Ugly Mountain.”

But unlike the Capitol’s world-famous dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Rehabilitation Center, this video has only caught the attention of some 370 viewers and one comment as of yesterday.

The video is actually a project of the Mayor’s Management Team that was presented during the recognition night of the Systems, Procedure rationalization in Government or SPRING in July last year.

The video’s short description also said it was done with the most talented production and post-production staff of Bigfoot Entertainment Phils. It was uploaded by one of the MMT personnel on July 23, 2007.

The video started with the mayor asking: “How can ordinary people make a difference? How can we catch ourselves reading in the newspapers the big problems in our community?”

“We ask ourselves, how can we solve these? What could I do? But sometimes we feel so small, overcome by fear, sense of futility,” Osmeña added.

The mayor asked what development is all about. He said what best demonstrates it is the story of “The Old Man and the Ugly Mountain,” which he also cited several times as example in his inspirational talks and messages. Then he started telling the first few lines of the story.

After Mayor Osmeña, the City Hall’s key officials and personnel continue telling the story. There were at least 16 storytellers including the mayor.

“The Old Man and the Ugly Mountain” is about an old Chinese man who lived in a village near the old and ugly mountain.

The mountain does not serve any purpose because it has no trees, no fertile soil, and has no animals or wildlife living on it. Because of this, the villagers wanted to get rid of the mountain.

The old man tried to convince his neighbors but they did not believe him because the mountain is too big.

But the old man was determined to do it even if he would just pick just one rock from the mountain a day and throw it to the ocean, which he would do for the rest of his life.

And despite the apathy of his neighbors, he guaranteed them that the mountain will not get any bigger and definitely it will get smaller.

The story ends with Osmeña’s favorite line: “There’s always a better way.” — Wenna A. Berondo/LPM