On the surface, the order of acting Cebu City mayor Margot Osmeña to recall all city government-owned vehicles issued to the city's different barangays looks innocuous enough. The purpose of the order is ostensibly to conduct an audit of the city's transportation assets. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, any audit is good. That is why there is always an auditor lurking somewhere.
What is not clear is what type of audit is to be conducted. Is it simply the number of vehicles? If so, then there is really no need to require the barangays to return the vehicles. City Hall can simply field its auditors to the barangays and count the number of vehicles they see. Cebu City has only 80 barangays. It will not take two weeks to conduct the audit.
If, on the other hand, the audit involves checking the condition of the vehicles, then requiring the return of the vehicles is preposterous as only those in running condition can obviously make it back to City Hall. Those that have bogged down will naturally stay where they are. But this type of audit is obviously not what City Hall has in mind.
Several vehicles have already been returned but they are just sitting idle where they are. That nobody seems to have taken a peek at them suggests an audit may be farthest from what is really going on. The recall could be the first step of a possible political vendetta. Once all vehicles are in, those given to barangays that voted for the incoming administration will likely be returned. Those that went with the outgoing administration will likely kiss their vehicles goodbye.
Of course, all this is within the prerogative of the incoming administration. To the victors belong the spoils. Cebuanos are intelligent enough to see changes always come with each handover of power. How regretable and disappointing it is then for Cebuanos to be told this is an audit when that could just be an excuse for a reappropriation of political spoils.
Many barangays know exactly what is going on as well and have refused to returned the city-owned vehicles assigned to them. It is not clear what their legal liabilities might be for their intransigence. But the political fallout is almost certain – you just cannot fight City Hall. Sooner or later, a vengeful city hall can always find the means to hit these barangays where it hurts them the most.
There is just one little problem. While the assignment of vehicles is inextricably interwoven into the fabric of patronage politics, the uses for such vehicles are very real and cannot just be tritely dismissed. Many of such uses are emergency in nature and it is never in the interest of City Hall, regardless of who may be sitting there, to deprive the public of free and immediate use of such vehicles in emergency situations. Just the thought of a coming La Niña already poses concern.