Schools, Church, and civil society should help clean city

If the whole city stands up as one and declares war against all forms of dirt, all filth and all garbage, maybe we can have a cleaner city. If all complaints and criticisms are transformed into collective action, positive and immediate action, we can have a city worthy of us all.

With due respect to the good mayor, Atty. Edgar C Labella, who, incidentally, is doing very well as chief executive, and also with high esteem to his vice mayor, Atty. Mike L. Rama, who has prepared a committed, coherent and complete legislative agenda to support the Labella leadership, I need to call attention though to the crying need to clean up the queen city of the south, first and foremost. With malice towards none, but with the greater interests of the city and the common good for Cebuanos in mind, it is our humble view that cleaning up the city should be given a top priority. And everyone should be asked to get involved.

 The government alone seems to be too slow, somehow lukewarm and apparently lacking in a sense of purpose and focus to make the city clean and green. Later perhaps, in their order of priorities, but our view is that it should be done now and done fast. Three months have passed since the changing of the guards, and the Cebuanos have yet to see a determined, passionate and all-out thrust to clean up Cebu City. I have not heard nor read that one action-oriented executive has been appointed, designated or assigned to focus on this urgent and essential task of making the city worthy of its residents. Not just for foreign or local tourists but for ourselves.

I propose that the mayor call for an assembly of civil society, including the schools, the Church, socio-civic organizations, including the Lions, Rotary, Jaycees, Boys Scouts, the chambers of commerce, the IBP, the Freemasons, the Catholic church-mandated like the Mother Butlers, the Lay Ministers, the Knights of Columbus, the Born again Christians, we should all be counted and help, Together, we can do more, and we can finish early. If all shall contribute, the task shall become easier and lighter. And we can all bond together as one community, united by one goal, to have a clean and green city.

There are millions of students, and each school should be assigned a street. They may all go out one Saturday, altogether, students, faculty, non-teaching personnel, and administrators. Even the priests and the nuns who manage exclusive schools and first rate hospitals should go out and help. This is our city and nobody would love it more than we do. Having involved all else, the city should institutionalize one unit to maintain the cleanliness and beautification of the entire metropolis. The council should create a dedicated unit that shall focus on sweeping, scrubbing, repainting, landscaping and repainting. Each personnel should be assigned an area with a definite metes and bounds. And the dedicated personnel should make sure that his assigned area is immaculate and beautiful tidy that even mosquitoes and rodents would be ashamed to step on them.

It takes the whole community to clean up our city. But it takes one passionate, focused and determined leadership to make it happen. Nobody else will do it. Nobody else would care.