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Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Roperos: ‘Dibay-dibay’
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
THE report that Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia has “outshone divide-Cebu” promoters in an encounter in Minganilla the other day, impressed anti-divide defenders. But it also precludes the beginning of a long struggle to protect the integrity of the island.
Such prospect, so said a livestock trader who was traveling in a van-for-hire with me, is not only a tedious one but also tends to be quite expensive at a time when the country needs all the funds it could generate for national development.
But I think, whatever else others may say and regardless of the final decision of Cebuanos on the issue, the experience would prove to be an eye-opener to the people about significant matters that pertains to their democratic way of life. For one, it would give them an insight into the personal and public motives of the men and women they had elected to certain posts.
The incumbents who have initiated the divide-Cebu idea won on the basis of a campaign program that envisions district development and growth.
But their claim now that their districts have not been developed or have not received development funds, would also put to question what they did with their pork barrels in the past nine years of their incumbency. Their constituency might as well also ask them about certain details of the projects they have spent their multi-million pork barrels on, which — if I recall correctly — was something like P60 million for each member of the House, until it was reduced in the 2005 budget. Or was the cut restored?
Then, for another, our countryside citizenry would hopefully realize that the leaders they choose during elections are often humble and obsequious during the campaign, almost to the point of kissing their feet when they come to the village to ask for their support. But when the elections are over, their behavior most often always reveres itself, especially if they won the campaign. And as soon as they are ensconced in their offices in the House or the Senate, or the provincial capitol, many if not most of them, become inaccessible.
Where do you think the joke, about elected public officials who are easy to find during the campaign period but are nowhere to be seen after the elections, come from? I like to think of our elective officials as “servants” of the people, as they are supposed to be under our democratic ideals. But of course, in real practice, the opposite is true. The elected officials behave like masters, and dictate what should prevail in their areas of responsibility. Just like now, when three House members, decided to divide Cebu.
The problem is that, without consulting with their supposed “masters” they decided that they should develop a political enclave out of their districts, and make the people toe their line instead of the other way around.
When I asked the livestock trader whether he welcomed the proposal, he said that it is much too expensive for everyone to go through. But he elicited the remark of somebody sitting nearby that the problem is not quite that simple for the country and all of us. He said there is more to it than meets the eye.
“Ang problema lang dinha, kay sigi lang tang nagdibay-dibay ini” he said. He meant that the whole country now seems to be undergoing a division of sorts. Here we are in Cebu, dividing the island into little provinces as if we own it. And then we have the national leaders who are exerting all their efforts to divide the country down the middle into pro-Gloria and anti-Gloria. And then we have the gambling lords dividing their take among people in high places.
“Sigi lang tang dibay-dibay ini,” he stressed. “Wa gyud tay asenso ini, sigi man tang gabuak-buak.” All we can say is, how true.
(June 21, 2005 issue)
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