On the mayor's verbal tussle: time to move on
We have already written about the verbal spat between Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Sta. Fe Mayor Jose Esgana and as I learned from Mayor Osmeña, he had an investor to invest in the property of his sister, Minnie Osmeña in Sta. Fe and I agree with him that Sta. Fe cannot develop with the attitude of Mayor Esgana. Unfortunately, certain overzealous media friends of ours are alarmed that suddenly I have become "friends" with Mayor Osmeña just because I defended him vis-à-vis Mayor Esgana.
Obviously some people believe that I should be totally biased against Mayor Osmeña no matter what! On the contrary, I'm being a fair journalist and we always analyze issues before writing our commentary on them. I also know from our friends in Bantayan Island what kind of person is Mayor Esgana and our best example is the way he treated Fr. Roy Bucag of the Sta. Fe Parish because the Mayor supported the Isla Music Festival organized by his son at the height of Holy Week.
I dare say that it was very irreverent of Mayor Esgana to fight the Catholic Church who defended our Holy Week observance with solemnity and respect for God. But what made it worse was Mayor Esgana used his powers as Mayor to support the event of his son who obviously profited from that event. Now that is what we call abuse of authority.
Again let me reiterate that while I fully agree with the observations of Mayor Osmeña that Sta. Fe cannot develop with the attitude of Mayor Esgana and let me use the same words of Mayor Osmeña against him, that Cebu City too cannot also develop if he continues to fight BDO or SM Seaside if he also has the same attitude as Mayor Esgana. Whatever monies that the City of Cebu can gain from BDO is nothing compared to the loss in investments that SM would have plunked with their SMX and ARENA, which unfortunately has been shelved!
Meanwhile that chanced encounter between the two mayors is over and done with; unfortunately for us in the media (I was listening over the radio several pundits still discussing this issue) we are making a mountain out of this molehill. Now whether this issue would end up in our courts is up to Mayor Esgana. So let's move on to other pressing matters, which is more important for Cebuanos than the quarrel between the two mayors.
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I was watching CNN news Tuesday evening and obviously CNN has tagged Pres. Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte as a "Strongman" and lumped him together with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. CNN interviewed the Human Rights Chair at the United Nations who continues to slam PresidentDuterte for killing 7,000 people in the drug wars, which made me realize why US President Donald Trump is sore at CNN and New York Times for their biased reporting. They don't even have proof that PresidentDuterte had a hand in this.
At this point, I exhort our friends to stop watching CNN as the last time they were not bias was when they swooped down to Tacloban three years ago to report on super typhoon "Yolanda" international code name "Haiyan" where they had a very excellent and non-biased reporting. How things have changed since the election of PresidentDuterte.
Clearly some groups are feeding CNN with misinformation on President Duterte because they obviously do not realize that Duterte is still working under our democratic system of governance. Something CNN ought to have reported to show that they were not biased.
Meanwhile I'm glad that Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, together with Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs Menardo Guevarra and the Secretariat of the Presidential Human Rights Committee Undersecretary Severo Catura, will be presenting a report to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights on May 8 in Geneva, Switzerland. The submission of this report is timed with the Universal Periodic Review Third Cycle by the UN body. All I can say is, it's about time that the Philippines fight back against the misinformation given obviously by the Yellowtards who are supporting the imprisoned Senator Leila de Lima who has friends and supporters within the Human Rights organizations. Now is the time to fight against this black propaganda!
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