Scrap buyer set to be hired Inayawan landfill consultant

What is utopia? If we should glean from the results of the last local elections, Utopia, as dreamed of by Sir Thomas More centuries ago, appears to remain just like that - an ideal, even in our modern times. Doubtless, it is certainly worth our while to attempt at approximating utopia. Never mind if we don't totally succeed in our efforts or get bruised in the process. We owe it to ourselves to embark on this adventure. This is timely especially that we have just given a fresh mandate to our leaders. However, since the scholastic level of the work of More is beyond my ken, I will limit my field of discussion to two essential ingredients which, I feel, are needed to be possessed by our elected local officials in the pursuit of what may be likened to as utopia.

I assume that the men on whom we have placed our trust to run the government, have both the brain and heart of good leaders. Their education must be better than most of us or we may have the miserable situation of a blind leading another blind.  For our sake, they are presumably more brilliant that their constituents because, first, to be able to decipher what are the present basic needs to be addressed and second, to plan for the future, the leaders must have sharpened their insatiable minds on the daunting anvil of searching education.

Whether we like it or not, there are just so many technical matters attendant to solving any current problem or outlining a vision of good government which can be supplied only by profound education or in the case of the less educated, by constant reading and laborious studies. Believe me, the serious poring over tomes and tomes of written products of scholars itself needs a deep capacity of understanding. Thus, the need for brains.

The second ingredient our leaders have to possess is the heart. It complements the mind. Since the promotion of man lies undoubtedly at the center of all government efforts and his interest ranks foremost in every policy, let our leaders feel, thru their heart what, of all things in the flux, occupy the category of the most needful. To me, a brilliantly conceived project may still fail to achieve its highest potentials if it denies the aspirations of the many less privileged. Differently said, a bright idea may be brutal in its implementation and so when the heart only bleeds with the prosecution of a project, it is doomed.

Against, these parameters, let us take a specific problem our city is facing, illegal settlers. In a study made by Dean Jeremias Montemayor half a century ago, and which is still valid up to the present, he said that urban centers shall continue to attract settlers from neighboring rural communities. Cebu City is not an exception.

I am looking forward to any plan of our leaders to discourage our neighbors from settling in our city, at least for a time being. Their coming only means that they shall compete with our local labor supply for available employment opportunities. Only when the unemployed among us find work may we relax our guard. By that time, we can open our arms to welcome them to our land and enrich our culture.

This plan, in the form of local ordinance, need not be harsh upon our employers. A repressive ordinance is anathema to growth. Indeed, it should encourage businessmen to see to it that priorities are provided to local hands more than those coming from outside our city. After all, a well-motivated business sector shall be happy to enforce policies that shall expand the margin of their profits. 

There are various legal and social schemes to achieve this particular end. It may not get us anywhere near the Utopia of More but, I am sure it is going to be a good start. Let us wait if our newly leaders are up the standard of Sir Thomas More.

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