Problems we face

WHEN I scanned the pages of Sun.Star Cebu yesterday morning, I was struck by the dominance of socially and politically related problems plastered on its first few pages.

The front page headline alone was a complaint by a former governor and presently deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. He cried foul over the acting governor deliberately delaying the release to the beneficiaries of his district’s development fund checks.

Sharing the front page was the report about the need for a “better handling of sex abuse cases” by the new Pope in his “to-do list.”

It is said that in a survey of 2,300 respondents from Asia, “more than three quarters identified sexual abuse and how the Church authorities” deals with them “as the most important challenge facing the Church and the new Pope.” The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN) said a survey likes the next Pope to be from outside Europe.

On the second page was the report about the former chief of the provincial social welfare office saying that while she has been replaced as head, she remains to be the “most qualified person to assume the post” being the registered social worker of the Cebu Provincial Social Welfare and Development office (PSWDO).

Then there’s the white lion sculpture that a reporter of this daily said “stands proudly outside the old Fuente police station.” It was placed among “garbage bins, wheelbarrows and other street cleaning implements.” The sculpture, though, has no marker that “describes when it was installed and who was behind its installation.”

Coming closer to our contemporary times, there is on page 4 of this daily yesterday the call of the mayor to please check the South Road Properties tunnel in order to ascertain reports he received that “it leaks when it rains.”

It is a serious report that needs immediate action as it endangers lives if the same should collapse. In fact, someone supposedly heard an explosion inside the tunnel recently, a matter that elicits fear.

Lest I would be charged of doing a litany of problems here that might be dull and boring to some readers, let me close this narration with two other tales on the same page 4 of the issue.

It is about another query from the mayor regarding the contract the city entered with Bigfoot some six years ago. Of course, he was not yet the mayor then, so he could not have had anything to do with the negotiation and signing of the contract socially or politically.

Finally, there is the problem of electric power. But this is more of a business or commercial matter. It is an entirely different problem that is outside my interest and competence at this instance.