Tiny wish, big hopes  

It’s near election time, and the candidates have made their respective pitches to the voters. Whether it’s this program or that necessity, their differing stances on how they’ll address the urban ills have been broadcasted. What’s next is actual delivery by the victors --if they remember their promises.

What would be wonderful is for these victors who claim to represent the will of the electorate to take a walk around the streets of Cebu. Just a stroll around the most populous areas, the ones most ridden by foot and vehicle traffic. By noise and squalor. By chaos and confusion.

Let them just come out for a short while from their air-conditioned vehicles, gated communities, comfortable bubbles, and see how the rest of the unfortunate citizens experience day-to-day living. Call it an immersive deep-dive.

These decision makers, with the newly-won power of the purse, can then see for themselves what needs addressing (assuming they’re willing to open their eyes). It’s not just the unserviceable sidewalks or the miserable potholes --it’s the totality of what their constituents are experiencing.

The most urgent (for me) is the human suffering so visible on a daily basis. The indigents who have been left to fend for themselves after the twin disasters of COVID lockdowns and typhoon Odette. They can be found panhandling wherever they can find sympathetic passersby. They’re sleeping on sidewalks, or intermingling with patrons in cafes. They’re parked in traffic corners hoping for dole-outs. Their clothes are rags, their possessions (if any) are in tattered plastic carriers.

Paging the mayors, vice mayors, and the city’s social welfare workers. Surely there’s nothing more urgent in your calendars than attempting, on a daily basis, to address the human toll of social and economic dislocation?

Stop attending those useless meetings for a while. Who cares about these social events, bridge inaugurations, and vintage car rallies? There are lives you can impact, very quickly, by pouring just a little bit of those resources at your disposal.

I won’t even go into the infrastructure that’s been destroyed by the said typhoon which, nearly half a year after, has been neglected. Or the avenues for arts appreciation or sports facilities, both outlets I would advocate as vital to any urban concentration. While important, as well, and capable of uplifting the city into “most livable” status, they pale in comparison to the shameful horror of neglect and lack of compassion on display every day in this city so eager to call itself a metropolis.

Never mind that the system of public transportation is barely tolerable. Never mind that telecommunications services, especially since Odette, have been frustrating. Let’s not think about the environmental degradation happening daily, even as we speak (write).

These are all the problems to be inherited by the campaigners so eager to take public office. And yes, a three-year program won’t be enough to tackle the surface (as they know so well, and which they will deploy so effectively to campaign for a second term). But at the very least, a modicum of good faith effort seen from their quarters would be so refreshing.

This city, this island, this region --all of these would be so lovely if only those who catapult themselves into power do their serious best to discharge the trust reposed into them. Sri Lanka, a nation bankrupted by a powerful political clan, would be the stark example to those who disregard their mandate.

Will this city go the way of Sri Lanka? Barely enough food, a system in disarray, leaders left unaccountable while its citizens scramble for survival (the same question that can be posed for this entire nation, if it falls into the wrong hands). Let’s hope we don’t find out the hard way.