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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Carvajal: Cebu’s mysteries and the summit
By Orlando P. Carrvajal
A problem that has no solution is no problem at all. It is a mystery that, like dogma, needs to be taken on faith.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has effectively told us in so many words that the vigilante killings are insolvable. The killings, therefore, are a mystery. But not really. His (as in not our) police chief knows why the killings cannot be solved. There are no witnesses. Therefore, to be more precise the mystery lies in the lack of witnesses.
Recently, the mayor declared that the flooding problem of Cebu City has no solution. Another of Cebu’s mysteries.
In fact, there used to be so many mysteries in Cebu City, one of the biggest being how dirty Cebu City is. But these are all finding solutions in the Asean Summit. Streets are being paved and center islands landscaped. Sidewalks are being cleared and curbs painted. The tangled electric and telephone wires, aptly representing the tangled minds of our city officials, are being strung neatly.
Asean heads of state are coming for a summit and all of a sudden mysteries are being solved. All of a sudden problems that effectively became mysteries for having been unsolved all these years are now finding some solution. And Cebu City is starting to look like somebody cares.
I have two misgivings, however, with the summit being used as an impetus for solutions. Only those that come within our visitors’ field of vision are getting solutions and these are obviously temporary.
Some major streets are getting a new coat of asphalt but will probably need another summit years from now before being paved again. Worse, informal settlers living in lean-tos along major routes are just being screened from view. Their homelessness is not being solved but hidden and what’s behind the screens will be a mystery to our guests.
I suspect the killings will also be given a temporary solution and Cebu City will be “friendly” to criminals for the duration of the summit. After all, we need to put on a peaceful and safe front to our visitors.
About the flooding…our city officials probably figure that since December is past the rainy season, the floods will not be there for the visitors to experience. Hence, the flooding need not be solved, not even temporarily. It can remain a mystery.
And since no visitor will use the pedestrian walkway in Fuente Osmeña, the one spanning Mercury and Robinson, we can safely presume its filthiness will remain a mystery.
But why temporary and why for visitors only? The answer is simply that the mother of all mysteries is how the mind of the mayor (and PGMA?) works. Why he needs to be right and everybody else wrong all the time will remain one of Cebu’s most enduring mysteries.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 6, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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