Don't quarrel, not now

With the 12th ASEAN Summit fast approaching, and with the hectic preparations on infrastructure, security, accommodations, among others, still not over by a long shot, Cebu leaders have to stay focused. They can not afford to throw monkey wrenches into the scene, the four Metro Cebu officials specifically, and also, vis-à-vis with the Provincial Capitol.

And so, should they quarrel at all, let the ASEAN Summit lapse and, thereafter, they can go for one another's throats if they must. After all, public governance in Philippine setting is always a bone of contention that every political dog hungers to hold in his greedy teeth.

It's then quite gratifying to hear Gov. Gwen Garcia, though insisting to go against Mayor Tomas Osmeña over the power to fill up any vacancy in the MCWD board, and yet, tactfully say: "Tommy and I can agree to disagree, without being disagreeable".

Doubly pleasing has been the sheepish meekness of Mayor Osmeña to Gov. Garcia's non-negotiable assertion anchored on P.D. 198. None of that pedigreed arrogance that hizzoner used to mouth at whoever dared cross his path, even including against his elder cousin Sonny O. Reacting in slow measured words sans bombast, but without letting go of his opposite stand, he prefers to have it out civilly ventilated before the court.

By colloquial gambling analogy, it just happens that lady Gwen's feathers got the measure of hizzoner's hackles, as in: "Ang kang Tommy nga manok nga buyogon, gibalhibuan sa kang Gwen nga benabayeng ugis".

In the same vein, let the conflicts over the Ayala-Stateland Consortium water contract to pipe Carmen's water to Metro Cebu, be laid low in the meantime. Anyway, despite Ayala-Stateland's adamance to hold on to its undeserved P200 million "development cost", MCWD recommended to the NEDA its outright scrapping to level the playing field on price challenge bidding.

Incidentally, is it mere coincidence that LGU officials of near north Cebu who had castigated Osmeña's opposition to the water project, are the same ones now egging the governor to stand up to Osmeña inre the board issue? Or, are they smarting from being just taken for granted, as if they were only boy scouts in short breeches, but now emboldened with political horns to challenge the neighborhood bully?

At any rate, should the water-sourcing issue have its rebound - sure enough, there will be further conflicts before its final solution - and the concomitant opposing views, let it stay rested until after the 12th ASEAN summit shall have been over.

As a sidebar, what gives with certain prognosticators who fan doubts on whether or not the CICC facilities shall be ready for the summit? In spite of Architect Manuel Guanzon's repeated assurance to finish the project on time, doubting Thomases find joy in casting clouds of doubt. In fact, even certain segments of the media are abetting the pessimistic stand, which landed in a national TV newscast not recently. Architect Guanzon is so freaked out by unrelenting doubters that he's upping the kitty to P1.5 million for any doubting takers. Well, Senator Sonny O as his wont, called the gambit but with nigh impossible conditions... but enough to rile the prime movers. Lately though, Guanzon has wavered and, for the first time, now invokes God's help...

It is the ultimate measure of the wisdom and statesmanship of Cebuano leaders, though often at loggerheads as if "mag-ilogay sa tinuboan", to hold their horses in hand, and not, to give free rein to their individual egos and biases for the sake of the ASEAN Summit.

Even the off-and-on controversy as regards the insidious plots to split Cebu should in the interregnum, to borrow Blas Ople's favorite word, be placed on the sideburner. Doing otherwise is a perfidious act and too un-Cebuano.

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