On the mayor's useless warning

Before His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña left for a needed medical consultation in the United States, he issued a warning ostensibly against anyone intending to stop any deal on the South Real Properties. What the mayor had in mind were persons who would file cases to prevent the city from concluding its negotiations with would-be locators at the reclaimed land. According to him, he would not tolerate such cases and concomitant delays, so he warned, that the city would ask for damages against these persons for their court actions delaying or stopping the land conveyance.

 To further the story, the names of former Senator John H. Osmeña and Barangay Tinago Kagawad Joel Garganera were mentioned. These two personalities quickly responded to the "warning" in ways we have read from the papers.

At first glance, to me, the warning aired by the mayor was an extension of his bossy if not arrogant ways. Because I had grown accustomed to such a haughty behavior, my initial impulse was to dismiss it. After all, I placed on record my position, one of support to the city government, on any transaction involving the conversion ofthe reclamation area into productive endeavors. Not that it would matter really, but I thought we should welcome any such development in order to free us from this monumental burden of paying our debt. Thus, in an earlier column, I observed that if the offer of the Filinvest Land Inc., were true, it was some kind of a gem which the city should hasten the process to conclude it.

When I read the mayor's warning again, it dawned on me that there could be something far more diabolical than what he just said. The warning was totally unnecessary because I have yet to meet a Cebuano, including his most severe critics, crazy enough to put a monkey wrench on any good deal for the city. When former Barangay Captain Garganera filed his case, he called the attention of the city that there was still needed a Malacañang authority for our city to dispose of any portion of the south reclamation project. If city lawyers disputed Kagawad Joel's theory, it was the latter's right to have the issue settled by the court.

At the same time, the caveat raised by the mayor was useless. No one would ever fight mighty city hall and expose himself to the rigors of a court action without a chance of getting a favorable decision. Indeed any such court action, founded on non-existent cause, would have no other fate than dismissal.

If the warning was unnecessary as it could be useless, why then did Mayor Osmeña issue it? Here, let me raise some possibilities.

One. It was also reported that the ordinance laying down the ground rules for a joint venture with the city on the development of the South Real Property had some technical flaws. City hall, culling from published reports, rushed its passage. It appeared to me that while the measure was still in the legislative mill, and therefore not yet a law, the city government and representatives of the possible locator, were probably working out some agreement on the basis of some of its provisions. In other words, if there was any thing the city committed to the investor, such a commitment was not anchored on existing rules. If this was the case, anyone could go to court to question the validity of such agreement by the city with some party, that's why the mayor made the warning!

Two. The mayor's' warning was a razzle-dazzle thing. It was clandestinely directed at the investors themselves and not at his critics. By making such a warning, the mayor was, in fact, trying to tell would-be investors that he could be easy to talk to and deal with but dangerous to offend. In a manner of saying, the mayor warned probable locators that they come up with something with which the mayor can proceed with the deal quickly, or face the wrath deadlier than the fury of a woman scorned. 

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