Why the BOPK should help repeal Ord. 2332

The Commission on Audit, former Cebu City South District Congressman Tomas R. Osmeña and the honorable Cebu City Councilor Margarita V. Osmeña, collaborated in laying the foundation for a much needed piece of local legislation. In a summary form of a document, the COA presented a tight financial position of the city. Frankly, I had to wade thru the technical mumbo-jumbo of the report and still could not completely make heads and tails of the fiscal presentation. So for want of a more accurate and less technical description, I just referred to the "critical monetary situation" of the city as cash flow problem in an earlier article I wrote on the subject.

Mr. Osmeña, who must have probably read the COA before it was released to the public, for his part, paid a full page advertisement that presented his observation on the financial woes of the city. Some friends informed me that the city's daily newspapers carried the ad and they could not miss calculating the huge cost of such publication. It might sound an incredible juxtaposition of words but my amigos felt that the former mayor attempted to appear objective in his advertisement. That he made known to the readers that it was his paid advertisement, however, did not hide his political motivation.

That was not all. The honorable lady councilor coming from the South District wanted a more dramatic, if not a sensationalized, attention on the perceived city fiscal predicament. Desiring an official discourse on the monetary woes of Cebu City, she asked for the appearance of the COA officials to a session of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. The majority members of the City Council coming from Mr. Osmeña's BOPK chorused with her. She knew that the sessions being public, she could extract from the lips of the COA officials a clear statement that she thought would be most damaging to the city administration. In that regard, I concluded that her move was political.

It is lamentable that the city might, indeed, be close to operating on the red. With a tight fiscal situation, it will be hamstrung to deliver basic services. Medicine will vanish from the shelves of the Cebu City Medical Center. There will be fewer garbage trucks to retrieve trash from our homes. Roads cannot be maintained and at night, dark to travel on. This litany is unending.

So, let us take hook, line and sinker the alarming view of the Osmeña couple and we ask our honorable councilors to provide the help to the city. It is their sworn duty to promote the best interest of the city residents rather than serve the selfish motives of their political master. In that direction, they have the responsibility to make sure that the mayor has, within his disposal, the financial capacity to meet all demands of public service.

Let me remind, for the nth time, the Sanggunian that last year, it passed an ordinance that perhaps, started the crippling of the city. The councilors intended to tie the hands of the mayor from generating the kind of huge funds necessary to serve the city. By making it problematic for the mayor to start any negotiation for the disposal portions of the South Road Properties, with anyone, the city council isolated that valuable piece of city real property from possible source of cash generation. While in my constitutional law classes, my students share the opinion that such ordinance is flawed, the mayor, for inexplicable reasons, has not taken action to contest its validity.

The current fiscal fix the city is in calls for the sale of some parcels of the reclaimed land. In order to start the process, the city councilors must repeal Ordinance 2332. I have heard that honorable Sanggunian members Hans Abella, Mary Ann de los Santos and Dave Tumulak filed the repealing measure with the City Council. Hon. Margot Osmeña should lead her BOPK team members in the council to support Hon. Abella, de los Santos and Tumulak. In refusing to support the measure of the Team Rama councilors, Hon. Osmeña will have only shown that her heart is not attuned to serving the city.

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