TV news appearances of two mayors

Two weeks ago, I went to the Lapu-Lapu City Hall, for some real estate transactions at its office of the city assessor. When I reached the office, I found out that the line of people transacting business was rather long for an old guy like me. To join the line meant standing for a good while, a thing which I thought my old knees could not probably endure. I had to look for someone to help facilitate my deal. That someone was Engr. Francisco Limpangog, the Secretary of the Sanggunian Panlungsod and my former student in the College of Law. Boy, was I glad to solicit his assistance because in no time at all, I finished what I came for and with a hot cup of coffee to boot.

 While Engr. Limpangog and I were engaged in small talk, the vice mayor arrived and he sent a staffer to invite me inside his office. After a quick exchange of how are yous, Hon. Sitoy asked how non-Oponganons like me perceived the administration of Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan. While that question seemed unlikely, if not unexpected, the truth of the matter is that I was not totally unprepared for it.

For about a month already, I took note of the number of items that were reported in the Visayan news program of GMA’s Balitang Bisdak. Particularly, I counted the instances the mayors of the four neighboring cities of Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, and Talisay appeared as sources of such reports. Actually, this was the second time that I made this notation as in fact, I wrote in this column last year my similar observation for a given period of time. I knew that what I was doing was not scientific as a kind of intelligent study or survey. After all, the success of the administration of city executives cannot be gauged by the number of occasions their faces were shown on television together with bits of news reports attributed to them. But, in its crudeness, it provided some indicators on the way the mayors were handling the affairs of their respective cities. The more video footages were taken of the mayors, I surmised, the more times they did something for their cities that were worth reporting.

I shared with Vice Mayor Sitoy that observation. He and Engr. Limpangog seemed happily surprised. In simple language, I told the vice mayor and the sanggunian secretary that Balitang Bisdak featured the Lapu-Lapu City mayor with the most number of times that a news report had him as a source. Mayor Chan was followed by mayors Gullas and Cortes. I then concluded that based on the frequency of TV appearances, Mayor Chan was the most active local chief executive.

I explained to Vice Mayor Sitoy though that a major flaw afflicted my crude survey. I should have not included Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella. The Cebu City mayor was least seen on TV because he was not feeling well. Mayor Labella had ear infection that necessitated his hospitalization. Naturally, that health problem, even if minor, somehow affected his administration. Given that Cebu City has a population bigger than the combined population of the three other cities, there were other administrative matters he could not physically attend to and because of which he could not be seen on TV doing the same. But, his being absent from television news coverages did not necessarily mean that he was not working.

We Cebuanos do care for our mayor. The absence of Mayor Labella from the action scene being caused by health problems, is acceptable to us although he needs to be more transparent for us know the real score. In fact, he should take a leave of absence long enough for him to recover fully from whatever hounds him rather than serve us at half his full throttle. We believe that at his optimum capability, he will give serious competition to Mayor Chan for recognition in all standards of excellence.