On the road to recovery for Cebu Province

Two of the most important facets during the previous administration of Governor Gwen F. Garcia were the Suroy-Suroy Sugbo and the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo. As I already wrote the Tourism Ceboom of Cebu was focused in Metro Cebu, notably Mactan and maybe the diving town of Moalboal. Governor Gwen’s pushing for this program literally allowed tourism into the areas of Cebu Province that people thought had no tourism value at all.

Today, if traffic is bad going to the north or south, it is due to the fact that foreign and domestic tourists come in droves to the many tourism destinations in the province. Notable among these is the whale sharks of Oslob and the iconic beaches of Bantayan Island. No doubt the effort of Governor Gwen was duly recognized.

The partner program was the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo. Well, we just learned that a huge majority of Cebu’s 51 towns and cities have expressed their intention to join the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo this August, dubbed as the province’s “Festival of Festivals.” This became a reality when 46 mayors and tourism officers signified their willingness to join the festival during a meeting with Governor Garcia at the Provincial Capitol building.

She hasn’t ended her first week as our “comeback” governor, but Governor Gwen has already set into motion these two important programs that defined her previous administration. During her inaugural address, she pointed out that “we can’t go forward” until we find out where we failed. That indeed these two major programs give a very important direction to the plan to recover what the Province of Cebu lost during the last six years!

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I really do not know if the City of Cebu seriously considered filing a case against former Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña for his destruction of his office a week ago. Apparently we learned that the Cebu City Legal Office plans to file criminal charges against the former mayor, his executive assistant Raymund Paul Climaco Taboada, and 27 personnel from a construction firm, for stripping the mayor’s office of its furnishings.

City attorney Rey Gealon said there was “evident bad faith” in the way they removed Osmeña’s property from the office.

First of all, it is totally wrong for the Cebu City Legal Office to include the personnel from Dakay Construction simply because these are ordinary workers who only followed orders from the top. If there is anyone fully responsible for this incident it can only be the former mayor who, during an interview over dzMM, justified his actions saying that he personally owned the things in the office.

The Dakay Construction personnel didn’t go there to destroy anything, but their initial orders were merely to “retrieve” personal belongings like furniture or paintings and the like. These construction personnel are poor employees and it would be totally disastrous if they were to face a criminal case when they were only told by their mayor to remove what he wanted them to remove. In the interest of justice, cases should be filed against the person who ordered these men to destroy his office.

Meanwhile, the legal team should look into what the Department of General Services (DGS) has certified that Osmeña owns the cabinets, shelves, claddings, light plumbing fixtures, partitions and doors, ceiling and floor works. I hope they won’t forget that the DGS was still under the Office of the Mayor when they issued that certificate.

At this point, we should also note that up to this time we haven’t heard any public apology given by former mayor Osmeña for the destruction of his office. As a former close friend of the former mayor who worked from 2000 to 2005 as head of the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM), I’m sad that because all these years that he was mayor of Cebu City, he did so many important things that made us proud of Cebu City.

But what has happened in his last few days in office only destroyed his political personality. More so that he so proudly insisted on owning the things he tore out of his office. Those so-called “donations” now have to be proven with papers, which will surely become another legal issue. Tommy Osmeña should wake up to the reality today, that the time for change has come.