EDITORIAL - In a pickle over the garbage puzzle

Cebu City councilor Margot Osmeña partly blames the garbage woes of the city on corruption. With corruption so prevalent in Philippine society, it becomes so easy and convenient to blame it for everything. In fact, if one is so inclined, one can probably even claim the zika outbreak in the Philippines as the result of some inscrutably corrupt official act somewhere.

That is how easy and convenient as it goes. And so, with her husband the mayor in a pickle over the garbage mess, why not indeed invoke the old reliable excuse of corruption. But for what? Even if the sticky fingers of corruption got caught in the garbage bin, how on earth will the discovery help the city find a place to dump its mountains of trash?

Margot claims there were irregularities in the contracts the city entered into during the previous administration for the disposal of the city's garbage. The problem with looking for excuses is that they sometimes blow up in somebody's face. Margot was already a councilor in the previous administration. In fact the council in the previous administration was dominated by her allies. Why then didn't they do anything about the contracts?

When Margot hastened to add that they never knew of these contracts, she not only brought light to bear on these contracts, she also brought the same light to bear on the council dominated by her allies. To scrutinize these contracts is the job of the council. Part of the job of the council is to protect the interests of the city at all times. So what gives?

Is she admitting then that the council in which she played a leading part had been outsmarted by someone who, if we get her drift, had woven corrupt intentions into the contracts? But the word outsmarted is best used to describe private individuals performing private functions, not public officials or persons in authority in the performance of official duties.

When it comes to the latter, the word that best describes a situation wherein something that ought to have been done wasn't is remiss. The council had been remiss in its job if it now claims, as Margot claims, that it knew nothing of those contracts. Remiss in fact has the same connotation as negligence. If those deals were tainted with corruption, it can only be because some people had been remiss or negligent, and they have just identified who they are.

Whatever emerges of the garbage mess, there is no getting off the pickle. As bad as corruption is, it is not the problem. The problem is where to dump the trash. Even if Mayor Osmeña gets to keep the Inayawan dump open, it will mean a costly tradeoff somewhere. But the dump itself will not last forever. In the more likely event that Inayawan is closed, the city may have to go back to Consolacion, But what of the tainted contracts, as Margot said? And the Mandaue truck ban?