EDITORIAL - What if Davide had been a Cebu del Suranon?

One of the best arguments for keeping the Province of Cebu in one piece probably happened without many people noticing it, maybe because it was intended innocently enough as a testimonial dinner in honor of one of contemporary Cebu's favorite sons.

The Province of Cebu, led by Governor Gwen Garcia, tendered the dinner for retired chief justice Hilario Davide Jr., honoring him for a lifetime of great achievements that has made, and continues to make, Cebu very proud.

What many may have missed, probably because the three-pronged initiative to break up our beloved Cebu into four pieces has apparently lost steam, was the fact that had the initiative succeeded, the Province of Cebu and the Cebuanos would not have found cause to honor Davide.

No, not only would we have found no cause to honor Davide, we would have lost all rights to claim him as one of our own. For Davide, a native of Argao, would have been a Cebu del Suraron or a Cebuano del Sur or whatever awkward appellation he is entitled to claim in his new province.

For his new province would have, by then, been Cebu del Sur, sought to be created out of the second congressional district to which Argao belongs by its last termer representative Simeon Kintanar. Thus, in political nomenclature at least, Davide would no longer be a pure Cebuano.

The pure Cebuanos would only be those from the surviving Province of Cebu. The second, third and fourth districts, incubated in intense desire by Kintanar and fellow last termers Antonio Yapha and Clavel Martinez, shall have given birth to new awkwardly named Cebuanos.

To be sure, at the testimonial dinner for Davide, the Province of Cebu tried to stress the beauty of unity, of oneness. But the emphasis on these virtues were clearly derived from the pride we all felt in calling Davide our own.

Indeed we are pretty certain it did not occur even to the dinner organizers that the happy occasion would not have been possible had Davide been a Cebu del Suranon or Cebuano del Sur or whatever strange name he would have the misfortune to be called by then.

Sometimes, aghast at how ridiculous some people can get, we can only respond by being funny about it. But in the end, Cebu is too precious and too unique to be funny about. It is not for anything else that worries us. There is only one Cebu and one Cebuano. It must stay that way.