EDITORIAL - When public interest so demands, or does it?

Before the Rico's Lechon closure by the Cebu City government for lack of permits to operate follows the path taken by the Andres Bautista saga in which the Comelec chairman's personal difficulties with his wife have come to the fore instead of the real issue which is his having allegedly amassed unexplained wealth, so must the lechon specialty restaurant controversy not allow the personalities involved to occlude the real story here.

In a nutshell, this is the story. Rico's Lechon is owned by the Dionson family, except for a branch in Mabolo that is a partnership started in 2012 between the Dionsons and Bea Villegas Osmeña, daughter-in-law of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña. Sometime before the end of July this year, the Dionsons informed Bea Villegas Osmeña the family wanted to run the business on its own and no longer wished to renew the partnership.

Shortly thereafter, City Hall started breathing down the neck of Rico's Lechon for lack of a business permit. Unable to meet set deadlines, the restaurant was padlocked on August 3. On August 17, owner Enrico Dionson called a press conference to claim personal vendetta by the Osmeñas. Mayor Osmeña shot back through Facebook that it was negligence on the part of the Dionsons. Dionson said he helped in Osmeña's campaign. On August 18 City Hall closed the restaurant's commissary in Talamban.

These personal exchanges must not be allowed to distract the public from the core issue that lies at the heart of this controversy, because this issue can very well end up in a case before the Office of the Ombudsman. And what is the issue? It is about how City Hall reacts to a violation, and whether or not such reaction is dutiful or motivated by something else.

From what has been gathered so far, it would appear that, as Mayor Osmeña correctly pointed out, Dionson had been negligent in his business by not seeing to it that he had met all the requirements. This much Dionson himself admitted -he thought such things were taken care of by someone or another. In effect Rico's Lechon had been operating for the past five years without a permit. But if that is the case, why did City Hall not take any action in all of those five years?

It is difficult to argue with Mayor Osmeña when he cracks down on a business without a permit. That, after all, is in the best interest of the city. But in the case of Rico's Lechon, whose owner now ruefully admits had been operating without a permit for the past five years, where was the city's interest in all of those years that it had to be suddenly discovered only now, in the wake of certain developments that, in one way or another, are personal to the mayor?