EDITORIAL - Incompetence? Or self-destruction? Or both?

The page one photo in this paper last Saturday shows a seemingly exasperated Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca Santiago spreading her arms like a referee, apparently trying to hush down Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes and 6th District Rep. Nerissa Soon Ruiz.

The story behind the confrontation has heretofore been largely buried in the inside pages by local papers on account of its pettiness — one politician trying to put down the other. But with it now taking up the precious time of the Ombudsman, it is best to put things in context.

The issue had simple beginnings. Like any member of Congress, Nerissa has projects she can fund in her district. One such project is the concreting of R. Colina Street in Mandaue City. As a matter of course, she needed to coordinate with Jonas and dutifully wrote him last October.

But whether by design or plain omission, Jonas failed to reply, or at least not within the 15 days that officials are required to reply to official communications. By the time Jonas chose to reply, two months later, it was not to Nerissa but to the DPWH. And it was too late.

Why he did not reply to Nerissa smacks of petty spite. But never mind. That is another story. The project having been bid out, it now had to proceed. And proceed it did. Or at least tried to. Until it was stopped by Jonas. With brute force, using police SWAT elements.

Was Jonas going to war? If not, that certainly was the impression given. And it was a sorry impression indeed, for his adversary is a woman. The critics of Jonas call him incompetent. He just gave them a new idea for another unflattering adjective.

A compromise was struck at the Ombudsman meeting. Nerissa will move her project to one part of R. Colina Street while Jonas takes over the original area Nerissa started. But the budget of Nerissa was only P500,000. Reports now say Jonas needs millions more for his portion.

Whatever it takes, government money is now being wasted beyond the original plan. And all because of petty political rivalry, or worse, the failure of Jonas to appreciate the consequences of his actions.

His critics say these failures have the common thread of incompetence stringing through them. We are not about to ride on these criticisms. What surprises us, however, is that Jonas is oblivious to the fact that he is lending himself to fit their critical descriptions of him.