EDITORIAL - Will BOPK win make Cebuanos’ lives any better?

The political faceoff at the Cebu City Council last Wednesday between the ruling BOPK and the minority Team Rama got a big splash in the news, with at least two local newspapers, including this one, deciding to banner the story. And indeed the story deserved the space and prominence it got. In this city, nothing sells hotter than local politics.

But other than the fact that the BOPK managed to cling to its slim majority in the city council, an interesting thing considering that it has been the opposition ever since Mayor Michael Rama took over the helm of the city two terms ago, there appears to be no real significance to what transpired other than the fact of its happening.

A more astute observer would likely remark -- so what? And so what indeed? What does it really mean to anyone, other than the members of the political groups involved in the fracas, whether the BOPK stays as the majority or whether Team Rama, curiously stays in the minority? Will it put food on the table? Will it provide jobs? Will it mean safety and security for everyone?

Judging by the track record of the city council, whether of this administration or the past, there has little that the council has done by way of legislation that has improved, in a meaningful, tangible and beneficial way, the lot of city residents. And that is a big disappointment considering that the Cebu City Council is supposed to be the second most important such council in the country, given the status of Cebu City.

Not that the city legislative mill is actually running on empty. To be sure, it produces pieces of legislation every now and then. But most of the time, these are the nominal measures anyone can expect of any local legislature. There simply has been nothing of the sort that one expects of a legislature of the council's stature. There is simply no dynamism and imagination that Cebuanos might expect to hope for.

On the other hand, there seems to be no dearth of political skirmishes and upheavals in the council. And because these are what get into the news, maybe the council members have come to believe that what sells as news is precisely what people want. But nothing, of course, is farther from the truth. People will always buy the news, regardless of whether they can expect something from it tomorrow or the next day. Information is simply not expectation.

Perhaps, once this latest fracas has subsided, our council members will start striving to earn the honorific they have allocated for themselves by doing what truly honorable ladies and gentlemen are expected to do for their constituents in accordance with their mandates. What, for instance, does a committee chairmanship do for the Cebuano to make his life better other than being a symbol of numerical superiority in any political tug-of-war.