More sinister than buying planes

My initial reaction when I first heard of the proposal for Cebu City to buy three airplanes was one of disbelief. Shock would be too harsh a word to use. Ayroplano jud! Tulo pa ka buok. Pastilan oi. Even then, despite the fact that I felt it was a weird plan suggested from a possibly manipulated bankrupt mind, I was open to listen to justifications that were surely forthcoming.

It dawned on me that Vice Mayor Joy Young thought of it because the Department of Education was disposing of the planes. In other words, he hinted that it could be an opportunity buy. It would not matter to him that in all likelihood, the officialdom of the Department of Education, which owned these planes, found these units too old for service and probably in a state nearing junk as to be useless that's why they had to be disposed. We just had the chance to buy them.

To anticipate the questions of the planes' condition, the vice mayor (later on joined by the CITOM chief) said that the Philippine Air Force can be asked to maintain them. He carefully chose his words as not to say "to repair them". In fact, the air force can have their pilots fly them. That, if the vice mayor has his way, is making our air force an adjunct to the city and its commanders subordinate to the city's second in command.

Differently said, the vice mayor proposes to buy these planes because they are available and not because the city needs them. Our city officials, the vice mayor included, do not ride planes to go to Adlawon, among the city's farthest barangay in the North district because in the first place, there is no landing strip there. It looks like Young and company plan to build airports in all of the city's far-flung areas, instead repair the roads for every one to use.

Recognizing, albeit lately, the absurdity of this justification, the vice mayor stated that the planes could be used to search for people lost at see. He lets us just assume that these planes are designed for this undertaking. Wow, Cebu City will be the first city in the country to send out planes in search of distressed citizens of the Philippines. My God, why did not the education officials think of this laudable idea!

In any case, the idea of buying airplanes came in almost at the same time the city council deleted from the budgetary measure a two million peso appropriation for the creation of the Cebu City band. I was already embarrassed to notice how discourteously our sanggunian acted when they erased that item from the budget ordinance without previously informing His Honor Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama,I puked at the disdain shown by the mayor's supposed lieutenants in proposing an entirely new and seemingly outrageous expense masqueraded as an acquisition of planes.

So, I could not help but surmise. This early, I see efforts are variously undertaken to show that the new mayor so lacks leadership qualities that his men run rings around him. They do not seem to show any modicum of respect for him. Where he makes policy pronouncements, like the creation of the city band, some councilors take liberty to disregard them completely. In case he misses a point, like not having timely directed the appropriation of sums to pay the buses that the city distributed to the barangays shortly before elections, the sanggunian makes a great public issue out of it.

Like the aborted band the mayor had in mind earlier, there are many musical instruments, yet they play in harmony. And so it is the case of the various developments in the city that appear to militate against the successful administration of our new mayor. They are apparently so well-coordinated. There must be a mastermind to all this subterfuge and the mayor should better be aware of what is going on. The earlier he fixes his organization, the better. Or he kisses good-bye to further political aspirations.