The heroism is not too late

We heard that at the onset of the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Michael Gleissner, the founder of the Big Foot group of companies, offered to the administration of Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella his building on the sprawling South Road Properties for use as a temporary facility to house persons infected with the disease. I understand that the offer of Mr. Gleissner, a German businessman, was coursed through the members of the City Council belonging to the political opposition. When I learned of such incredibly generous offer, I doffed my hat to Mr. Gleissner. His gesture might appear suspicious to the jealous businessmen or even wicked to the eyes of the selfish, but to me, it was a genuine show of selflessness. Indeed, a kind heart and a cooperative psyche are not identified by the color of a man’s skin. That his offer was apparently endorsed by minority councilors was understandable considering that he came to our city during the regime of former mayor Tomas Osmeña.

 Some misguided idiots close to the new administration pointed to the questionable deal of the German entrepreneur and the former mayor many years ago. To boost, perhaps, their stock in the mayor’s periphery, they recalled that there were expensive cars earlier donated by Mr. Gleissner to Cebu City but eventually the vehicles got registered in the name of someone linked to the past city official and they labeled it under corrupt practice. Accordingly, the new mayor should not accept the offer of the Big Foot founder because it might taint whatever legal action had been instituted against the past City Hall occupant. Not even the facts that 1.) The city could use the privately-owned Big Foot building without cost to the government, and 2.) There is an absolute and extremely urgent need for an isolation facility. Sadly, a polluted mind cannot discern what is right from what is wrong even with the passage of time.

Apropos to such purported recommendation, Mayor Labella, in his usual diplomatic projection, rejected Mr. Gleissner’s offer. The city was not manifestly helpless. I remembered the mayor’s assurance that the city was in the process of completing two floors of the Cebu City Medical Center (targeted on March 31) specifically for COVID-19 patients. There were two other major constructions, one using the former Sacred Heart School for Boys and another an unused structure at the North Reclamation Area aimed at preparing for an eventuality of need. In my recollection, those projects, allegedly funded by the P1-billion budgetary allocation by the city, were to be operational on April 16 and 30, respectively.

Last Wednesday, the City Council, presided by Vice Mayor Michael Rama. began discussing a Memorandum of Agreement supposedly between Mr. Gleissner and the Cebu City government (Rama probably influenced the mayor into reconsidering his earlier rejection of the offer). This contract is apparently intended to cover the use by the city of Mr. Gleissner’s Big Foot building. It means that, after all, the offer of the German, is good. That its acceptance, no matter how belatedly, is still timely. As a matter of course though, the details will still have to be worked out. I like to believe that this MOA, however it shall be written, carries the blessings of Mayor Labella. Unlike the title of an old movie, starring the American Cliff Robertson, the gesture of the German Gleissner is not too late a hero and as they say, all is well that ends well. Thank you, Mr. Michael Gleissner.