Caindec exposes Osmeña propaganda
There is no better application of the “Fermi’s Paradox” than taking it in the context of the horrendous traffic problem at the South District of Cebu City. To recall, physicist Enrico Fermi — after arguing that there is, somewhere in space, a species with technology that is more advanced than what earthmen have and certainly have the know-how to communicate with us — asked this question: “Where is everybody?” What a paradox indeed. Author Ruth DeFries, (The Big Ratchet, (c) 2014), in furthering Fermi’s query said: “With such a high chance of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, why haven’t we heard from them?”
We have heard of the verbal tiff between Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and LTO Regional Director Victor Caindec. Caindec was peeved when the former threatened him with legal action. The initial salvo apparently came from the city mayor although he did not specify what case or cases he was building against the land traffic officers other than assigning the supposed subject matter — “delay in the registration of motor vehicles.”
I said it before and I’m saying it again that Osmeña’s continued attempt to dump garbage at everybody else is propaganda. Operators call it “squid tactic” or diversionary operations. Osmeña has to create a lot of debatable issues in order to divert our attention from his administration’s failures. The government personalities he vilified in the past were good targets because most of them were coy and afraid to fire back. They don’t want to go thru the humiliation former Barangay Captain Jesus Jaime suffered when the mayor shouted at him, “get out!,” while about to attend a function where he was an awardee. No one of his previous objects of indignities want to be dragged into a useless word war with an arrogant man.
This time, Osmeña’s choice of his foul mouth would not like to suffer in silence. Caindec spewed a heavy barrage of return fire in saying that the mayor should solve the city’s worsening problems of garbage rather than criticize other officials. Caindec hit the proverbial nail on its head because, on this issue of solid waste disposal alone (setting aside other concerns), Osmeña’s mayorship for about 30 years has only shown ineptness. And the word war escalated to the point that the mayor directed all traffic enforcers manning the south district’s problematic area to abandon posts. In his misdirected propaganda, the mayor placed tarpaulins relinquishing traffic management to the hands of LTO. But since Caindec saw the intricate trap, he exposed the folly of the mayor’s gambit by fielding none of his men to work where he had no legal obligation to do. Fermi sighed: “Where is everybody?”
True to the mayor’s propaganda, he riveted our attention to the resulting humongous traffic gridlock where there were no men directing vehicular flow. For a while, we forgot about the odious piles of uncollected rubbish, hordes of uncontrollable vendors invading the sidewalks, threats of floods owing to the failure of the mayor to direct the unclogging of the waterways, the unfinished city hospital, and so on. Then, Osmeña pulled another stunt.
The mayor directed the traffic enforcers to return manning the area in the south district. His objective? To make him a hero. He made it appear that the interest of the general public demands it. Oh, the call of public service! What Osmeña suppressed was that traffic management is his responsibility, and he to blame for our traffic woes. He failed miserably to address this concern the last 30 years of his mayorship. The legal role of the LTO is different from what the mayor desires us to think. If Osmeña tricked us into voting for him despite his ineptitude, it took Caindec to unmask our mayor. To him, we owe our gratitude.
- Latest
