Wednesday, June 13, 2007 Carvajal: Another ugly situation at City Hall By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
IT simply isn’t right. There is absolutely no way mayor Tomas Osmena’s obstructionism on the Lahug issue can be justified.
Stopping the construction of the school could be dismissed as the knee-jerk reaction of a man naturally prone to anger at “ungrateful” subordinates. But to lay down more barriers at the resourcefulness of the lady barangay captain is pure unadulterated pride with an ugly streak of meanness to boot.
Under the immediate circumstances surrounding the Lahug school issue, there can only be one kind of reason the City Council and now the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) are giving the mayor a “vote of confidence” in his handling of the controversy that he so unnecessarily created to the consternation of all sane thinking citizens. That reason is political with the end result that the education of our public school children (because perhaps they belong to the powerless lower classes?) is being sacrificed to the gods of political pragmatism.
Yes, we understand both the City Council and the ABC have political debts to pay the mayor. Moreover, we understand barangay captains know only too well what can happen to them if they incurred the mayor’s ire. As vindictive as he has proven to be, he will starve them of support to bring them down to their knees like what he’s doing to Mary Ann now and like what he did to Joe Navarro earlier. I suppose Joel Garganera is right now on the mayor’s crosshairs.
I can understand this, however, only for those who cannot win an election on their own like many in the Council and among the barangay captains. But it is so very disappointing that the few in the Council who can win on their own are not just keeping mum about it but even explicitly leaving it to the mayor to pursue his infantile move to punish Mary Ann for “telling a lie” about him.
Yes, it is a sin to tell a lie but it was Mary Ann who sinned and not the children. So why can’t the mayor just chastise Mary Ann without punishing the children?
The sad truth now is that we not only have lapdog councilors but also lapdog barangay captains. We understand why they have to support the mayor on political issues. But this is not a political issue. It is only made political by the mayor’s arrogance and vindictiveness. Besides, is political pragmatism without boundaries? Does not decency dictate that political pragmatism ends at least where the welfare of our children begins?
I can’t believe we just elected these people. Or did we really? Anyway, it is supposed to be payback time but it seems payback has to wait until the time the mayor’s pride has been assuaged and his anger soothed. Meanwhile, it is another ugly situation at City Hall and we can only hope and wait.
