EDITORIAL – A cunning Tommy and the CCMC

Of course everyone was aghast on hearing the announcement of Mayor Tomas Osmeña that, if he can find any buyers, he is going to sell the Cebu City Medical Center. That is because everyone equated selling with closing.

But wait. Osmeña did not say he was selling the hospital so that the buyer can close it and then convert the structure to whatever purpose he deems fit to suit his investment. If it is any consolation, at least the mayor left that part hanging.

Osmeña may have his reasons for threatening (that was what the announcement was, a mere threat) to sell the hospital, reasons that are not unknown to the Cebuanos. He already issued the same threat before, didn't he?

We will not go into those reasons for now. Suffice it to say that, whatever those reasons may be, they may have driven Osmeña to the point of frustration that he now wants to get rid of the problem by selling it.

Now, you may say anything you want about Osmeña. But he is not blind. He can see that he cannot just sell a hospital just like that without providing for the conditions that come after the sale.

Osmeña knows what a hospital is, precisely why he wants to sell it in his frustration. He knows that a hospital spells life or death for many people, most of them poor and desperate. Osmeña knows he cannot just turn off the switch and go to sleep as if he were at home.

Maybe Osmeña was just talking the talk, as he is wont to do to titillate an often unsuspecting and never learning media. From experience we have seen how the mayor throws out crumbs just for spite and watch incredulously as the media fight over them.

Or maybe he was serious, and there must have been some basis for him to make the threat, not to actually close the hospital but so others with more experience and capability to do these things can step in and take over. Either way, the cunning Osmeña emerges the winner.