EDITORIAL - Rama biggest loser in tow truck mess

The biggest loser in that tow truck incident at Fuente Osmeña is no other than acting Mayor Michael Rama. By failing to act decisively on the matter, he has shown Cebuanos yet again what kind of mayor he will be if he gets to run in 2010 and win.

A few days ago, a private tow truck owned by a company under contract to the city to apprehend and tow away illegally-parked vehicles, got involved in an incident that can only be described as ironic, unnecessary, and utterly brutal and abusive.

The tow truck, with three deputized agents with the mindset of hooligans on board, gave chase to two men on a motorcycle who were not wearing any helmets and trying to flee. Whatever madness seized the truck driver, he bumped the motorcycle and sent the men crashing.

The deputized thugs, totally ignorant of the meaning and scope of their authority, jumped off the truck and proceeded to maul the offending motorcyclists, oblivious to the irony that the helmet law is a safety requirement, and there they were inflicting harm with abandon.

The legal and moral questions pertaining to the incident could not have been clearer to anyone, and a decisive leader with balls to set things right would have seized the opportunity to act and show everyone who is boss.

But Rama, perhaps mindful of the public scolding he got from Mayor Tomas Osmeña, whose perverted but financially beneficial idea of order in the streets is not deterrence but to bleed violators dry with fines, passed up the chance to show leadership.

By calling for an investigation instead of kicking butt the way Osmeña would have done when displeased over anything (he kicked a barbecue stall, drove Talisay vendors from Cebu City markets, and barricaded the Sto. Niño Basilica), Rama showed a side unappealing to voters.

Maybe Rama just wanted to play by the book. But that is the way of the weak. Men of sterner stuff still kick butt but insist that is the way the book defines the play. And they get away with it. Walking with measured steps often makes one miss the bus.