NO ONE has noted that Cagayan de Oro’s Charter Day came and went last June 15 uneventfully. It was the city’s 59th anniversary.

For persons, as for institutions, a milestone date is usually an occasion for jubilation or self-congratulation, if only for having survived or thrived. But not for our city authorities.

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The mayor made no earth-shaking pronouncement, no special announcement, not even a notable report. Even the vice mayor, who’s always talking, always trying to upstage the mayor, said nothing of note. Except for forgettable song-and-dance acts, Charter Day in the city offered nothing.

Too bad, because it’s not good to get people used to nothing on an important day. Observances and rituals are important for social development, as for personal. It is why birthdays, baptisms, even graduations, are commemorated.

Rarely does our city hear anything in the nature of useful information, not merely propaganda. Even a guideline for living in a fast-urbanizing milieu would be useful. Traffic and road anarchy now are at unbearable levels, streets chaotic, squatting unchecked. But apart from the feeble efforts of what seem to be feeble-minded traffic officers, no one lifts a finger, clacks a tongue or issues tips.

At the opening session of the City Council earlier, the mayor was supposed to have presented “the program of government and propose policies and projects for the welfare of the [city’s] inhabitants and the needs of the city government…” (Section 455, Local Government Code)

This presentation is required as a yearly event so that the Council and the people may (a) know what the mayor has in mind for the immediate future and (b) determine what they should do help. It’s usually preceded by a State-of-the-City Report. Even barangays do it.

But neither this mayor nor the previous one ever complied with this annual ritual of democratic, good governance. They don’t give it any importance.

It’s understandable on the part of the vice mayor, of course. He seems incapable of hewing to formalities or making formal presentations. He hates dressing formal, and loves to smoke everywhere. He isn’t famous for the written word or for structured reports -- preferring oral, impromptu, rambling stream of consciousness that’s hard to pin down.

Nonetheless, both of them seem to subscribe to a concept of governance in which they wield blanket authority with no transparency but with a blank check to go with it.

Published in the Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro newspaper on July 4, 2009.