Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Editorials: Lots swap and Ciudad: trade-offs might work
CEBU Gov. Gwen Garcia must have a reason for choosing to be silent on the feud over lots swapping with Cebu City and Capitol's Ciudad venture.
In high or low spirits, she likes to talk and privately she must be speaking volumes. Publicly though, she has decided to keep quiet on the issue.
It may just be right. She can keep enemies guessing until strategists find a way out: give in, fight back, or trade off.
Much hostility will go if fewer words that spring from hate are said. Besides, a leader makes himself less of an ass if he doesn't rant when angry or hurt.
Addressing would-be buyers of Province-owned lots, the mayor said in effect: Don't buy lots from Capitol. You won't get City Hall cooperation. With hostile neighbors, who will be safe?
The good father
"Method in madness?" Maybe but a good father of a city doesn't even think about this: City Hall not keeping the peace if order breaks down in areas where it loathes the owner.
The wise leader is he who can still rage over what he believes in without after-the-fury regrets ("I can't believe I said those things. Ugh!").
The mayor knows Ciudad is a sound project that benefits both local governments. Bigger and more assets for the Province and increase in tax revenues and jobs for the City.
The mayor didn't make a pip when the project was on drawing boards and in inaugural lights. He must have seen Ciudad's rich prospects.
Why the new stance against Ciudad? Just convenient tool of torture to force Capitol to agree with City's terms of the lots deal.
Less heat
The mayor can be less combative. And some quiet will help them view the problem with less heat.
Not tough for them to agree that:
l Ciudad is a sound project, one that will increase Cebu's stature in the country and the world.
l It is not without cost and "victims": traffic and other problems of development will soar; some 4,000 families will have to be relocated.
l Those problems can be solved if the parties are not inflexible, and all involved, including the lot occupants, will accept that everyone has to make sacrifices.
The mayor knows moratorium is bad for the city: Cebu City is telling the world that it is not ready for new investments.
Not ready? Rubbish. Cebu City can triumph over anything, even with an irascible mayor.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 21, 2007 issue)
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