Friday, August 12, 2005
Ermita school site sought from Glo
By Gingging A. Campaña
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Mayor Tomas Osmeña has ordered his staff to document all election returns from the polling precincts of Barangay Ermita, Cebu City, to support his claim that President Arroyo indeed won in a barangay whose residents’ hearts were already set on the opposition.
Osmeña said he is bent on getting Arroyo to make good her campaign promise to give a school site for the children of Barangay Ermita.
“It was her political promise and what’s so significant about that is that’s where Joseph Estrada won when he ran for senator. Danding Cojuangco, who ran for president against Lito Osmeña, also got the highest votes in Ermita. But now, GMA won by landslide,” he told a news conference yesterday.
The mayor speculated that Ermita residents, mostly vendors and low-income groups, favor the opposition. He admitted that he would be very embarrassed if Arroyo won’t make good her promise.
“Bisan ako mauwaw sab ko. I just want to help the children. We’ll just ask the President to help them. It’s not for me or for my bata-bata (ward leaders). It’s just for the kids,” the mayor said.
Osmeña did not think twice about endorsing to President Arroyo last Wednesday a petition — filed by the employees’ union and the senior staff of the Cebu Port Authority (CPA) — against its general manager Mariano Martinez and the commissioners.
School site
CPA owns the lot near the Compania Maritima, which Osmeña has been eyeing as a school site for Ermita.
He got angry when CPA officials refused to negotiate with the City Government and donate the site, because they said a boardwalk will be built in the area.
This tested Osmeña and other city officials’ patience, considering CPA’s refusal to pay overdue realty taxes and penalties amounting to P3.2 million. They sought Arroyo’s intervention on the matter.
“It will take a little time to sink in. What is important to me is that we served the notice, because I’m willing to take measures other than what I’ve already taken,” the mayor said of the petition from the CPA employees’ union and senior staff.
Osmeña, however, did not comment on the allegations of the petitioners that the CPA management runs the port like a subsidiary of Aboitiz Shipping.
“It’s their impression. I don’t know, I’m not there,” he said.
But he mentioned a previous incident, when owners of Ocean Jet, a fastcraft company, alleged that they were told to move out despite having spent P10 million for a port terminal. This, the mayor said, created the impression that it was “their (Ocean Jet) competition who was behind all this.”
Enterprise
Osmeña said the employees’ impression was strengthened by CPA’s transferring its savings account from the Land Bank of the Philippines to Union Bank, a subsidiary of the Aboitiz group.
“Why, what’s wrong with Land Bank? What’s wrong with Land Bank is that it’s always robbed. But I don’t think that’s the reason they transferred. I don’t know,” he said.
“Anyway, my job is to protect the interest of the City, to level the playing field. That’s what our system is supposed to be like, a democratic free enterprise,” the mayor added.
Four senior staff members, their legal chief counsel and 51 other employees, in their Aug. 10 letter to Osmeña, called for the resignation of Martinez and all local port commissioners.
If they refuse to resign, the petitioners said, Arroyo should replace Martinez and the port commissioners.
“We feel that with the kind of leaders we have at CPA, public interest has lost its place at the port,” the letter read. (GAC)
(August 12, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
