THE Cebu Provincial Board (PB), on PB Member Victor Maambong’s motion, re-opened the ad hoc committee hearing on the controversial purchase of mostly submerged Balili land in Tinaan, Naga, Cebu.

But it was not true that when the PB members were asked to vote on the motion, they said “open sesame.”

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News accounts on PB Member Juan Bolo’s admission he gave P50,000 to Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre as tax payment triggered the reopening of the Balili probe.

PB Member Bolo denied it, confusing citizens who have been told over and over again that paying taxes is a civic duty.

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The Balili issue is one issue that refuses to die, whether buried under coal ash or drowned in seawater.

Some politicians may get some “pogi” points from it at another’s expense.

What is certain is that the truth is so elusive in this transaction and the PB failed to pin down the officials responsible for buying underwater land.

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Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has threatened to file criminal charges against officials who will support the proposed light rail transit (LRT) for Cebu.

What will that make of Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas who filed the bill for Cebu’s LRT system 13 years ago and Cebu City Reps. Raul del Mar and Tony Cuenco who co-authored the bill?

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It appears Mayor Osmeña is bent on blocking the LRT project till hell freezes over.

He’ll do everything, he said, to fight the project and to warn Cebuanos not to allow Cebu to be used as an excuse for graft and corruption.

Problem is, this line of argument taints everyone who labors and desires for an LRT system for Cebu.

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Former Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. is running for president under the Philippine Labor and Peasant Party.

“I fight to win so there’s no turning back. I have crossed the bridge,” he said.

Well, he could have crossed the bridge that his former agency built and which, had Mayor Osmeña disliked it, would have never been built.