EDITORIAL - The good and bad about the Apas letters

It was good that Mayor Tomas Osmeña promptly sacked the person who sent out solicitation letters using official stationery of the Cebu City government to fund the practice sessions of the Sinulog contingent of Barangay Apas. The mayor had every reason to do so. The person was connected with the so-called Barangay Mayor's Office that he unilaterally set up in every barangay, a move that is now being contested legally.

Barangay Mayor's Offices are ostensibly meant to bring the mayor's office closer to the barangays. In reality, however, it is a political move widely seen to clip the powers of barangay captains who are not his supporters. The barangay captain of Apas, Ramil Ayuman, is in fact a critic of the mayor. It was he who exposed the solicitation letters.

By sacking his own man, the person from the Apas Barangay Mayor's Office who sent out the solicitation letters using the official stationery of the Cebu City government, Osmeña succeeded in hitting two birds with one stone -he managed to project himself as an official who does not countenance shenanigans, and he managed to deprive his critic Ayuman the pleasure of gloating over the incident.

But Osmeña should have stopped there. He should not have gone any further. He should have quit while he was ahead. But no he didn't. Osmeña now wants the Apas Sinulog contingent to refund or give back any or all of the money that may have been solicited to fund its practices. In doing so, Osmeña fails to make the distinction between the guilty and the innocent.

While it is true the Apas Sinulog contingent may have benefited from the scam, its members actually had nothing to do with it. However it may have used the money, it did so in innocence. And here is another thing. While it has to be admitted that some donors may have been intimidated by the "official" connotations of the letter, it has to be fairly assumed, however, that some donors gave money wholeheartedly, without any other consideration than the honest desire to help.

And there are people like that, people who will not balk at any opportunity to help, people who, fired by nothing but an excess of goodness in their hearts, would dip into their pockets without ascribing malice on anyone. It would be an insult to these people if Osmeña succeeds in forcing the Apas Sinulog contingent to return the money whose solicitation they had nothing to do with, no matter how fraudulently it may have been solicited.