Sunday, October 21, 2007 Mercado: The same mongrel By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
THERE'S a Spanish proverb that fits Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s request that the City Council “properly delineate” boundaries between barangays Luz and Lahug.” El mismo perro con diferente colar. “It’s the same mongrel sporting a different collar.”
Osmeña tried, 16 months back, to gut Lahug’s tax base by stripping away large taxpayers. By diktat, he’d smudge boundaries on official maps, even those on City Hall’s websites.
Sans a by-your-leave, built-up areas – and their taxes – would be shunted to other barangays. These include: Marco Polo Hotel, Asiatown IT Park, Grand Convention Center, Waterfront Hotel and Casino, Park Lane, etc.
By “happenstance,” Osmeña partisans rule barangays to benefit from this executive doodling. By “coincidence,” the multi-awarded oppositionist Mary Ann de los Santos is capo of Lahug.
Osmeña has been trounced there in every election. He tucked tail when protests erupted after trying to scrub schoolroom construction to spite Ms. de los Santos. Cebuanos won’t stand for stomping on their children to score political points. He forgot that?
Barangay financial castration would gut Lahug. But exacting a political pound of flesh makes short shrift of good governance.
The method, in this madness, is crude. But lack of finesse is not a felony. Nor is it clinical lunacy. “Sanity calms,” philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote. “But madness is more interesting.”
“But it is usurpation of office,” Philippine Daily Inquirer noted. “Mayors have no power, as the law stands, to scrub boundaries at whim. That’s the function of local councils. Setting boundaries require criteria, so whim will not supplant reason. We court disaster if we forget what Justice John Marshall wrote: “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.”
The City Council kept mum over this grab of their powers. That tells much about this “harem of eunuchs.” From experience, the mayor knows councilors wilt at his first snarl. Hence, their views---whether on vigilante executions, lack of water policy or taxes---are ignored at worst, or tolerated at best.
“I’m only trying to spread the butter,” Osmeña mumbled in the resulting firestorm. His minions know which side of their toast is buttered. But in May 2006, Osmeña didn’t have a fig leaf to cower behind. There’s “need for adjustment.”
Sixteen months after that aborted threat, the mayor finally came up with the needed “fig leaf”: His City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) released a “study” that--–Surprise!---favored Barangay Luz.
Osmeña asked the Council: approve an ordinance “declaring the proper delineation of boundaries between Barangay Luz and Lahug.”
“Proper delineation” means what the mayor insists is “proper.” CPDO’s Nigel Paul Villarete tried to dispel doubts that councilors entertained on rubber-stamping the ordinance. Villarete explained his “technical” criteria which, he admitted, skipped consulting the most affected barangay: Lahug.
Villarete justified City Hall conning taxpayers on yen-loans when the Commission on Audit’s Helen Hilayo flayed us of obsolete exchange rates. Villarete trotted up “technical studies” to back Osmeña in blocking development in north Cebu, proposed by Provincial Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.
COA griped that Cebu--–saddled with the biggest debt of 131 cities---delayed submission of it’s 2006 financial statement. It thereby avoided appearing again as topnotcher in liabilities in the latest Financial Statement on Local Governments. Will Villarete justify that too?
Using taxes for political revenge savages, in the end, also the community that tolerates this abuse. Be wary then of mongrels even if they sport different collars.”
