EDITORIAL - The politics of pure hollowness

It is not really about how fast Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama was able to pull one over the BOPK councilors in the city council. To recall, the BOPK councilors were on the verge of blocking the payment of a P6.7 million downpayment by the winning consortium of SM, Ayala and Filinvest for a 45-hectare slice of the SRP on the basis of a legal opinion by the DILG that the sale might be illegal. Before they could block the sale, Rama went to Manila and there took a check covering the down.

To say that Rama pulled a fast one is to suggest something sneaky. What this whole hullabaloo should be about is fitness and fidelity to duty beyond pettiness of politics. First the fitness part. When the DILG made its legal opinion known, it made no attempt to hide the fact that it was an opinion. It said so plainly enough. As legal opinion, it was not binding on anyone or anything.

But lacking fitness in anything, the BOPK councilors jumped on the DILG legal opinion as if it was God talking and immediately called for a stop to the sale. It did not help that there were lawyers among the BOPK councilors. They would not have seen the difference if it beckoned to them like runway approach lights. Rama, a better lawyer, skirted the distraction and took payment, armed with a previous authorization the entire council already gave.

Oh yes, there is that little thing about an ordinance being required instead of a mere resolution, upon which distinction the DILG anchored its opinion. But that is not without remedy, the council being where such things as resolutions and ordinances are supposed to emanate. It would have been a cinch for councilors worth their salt to sort out such little kinks, especially this one that already gave its ok, an ok it now doubts, not of its own accord, but on the say so of DILG.

Still on the fitness part, one truly wonders if the city council of the second most important city in the Philippines has labored on anything worth edifying. A new election cycle is about to swing into view but before the hapless residents of this city are asked to give a fresh three-year mandate to anyone, isn't it worth asking what this city council has done, if any, or anything at all?

Because as far as anyone can remember, the accomplishment column remains utterly blank up to this time. There seems to be no piece of legislation that Cebuanos can truly say with a straight face this council made that helped make their lives a little bit better and more meaningful. As far as fidelity to their mandate and job description, the mighty mountain labored to bring forth a mouse.

And oh how the mouse squeaks, as in all politics. It is a squeak that cannot be ignored. It is there, persistent and annoying, this politics of hollowness. If one yawns out of sheer insignificance, the other yawns wider with even more insignificance. With loading this slow, Rama did not have to pull a fast one. Indeed, when he came back and waved a check at his airport presscon, the loading was still going on, slower than even the Internet.