Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Editorials: 'Land swap deal' talks
RESURRECTING talks on Cebu City Hall's failed and controversial land swap proposal with the Provincial Capitol can only be described with one word: titillation.
Talks on the "land swap deal" resurfaced recently mainly because the City Council conducted a public hearing on a proposed measure to rezone provincial lots in the city into socialized housing zones.
Strategy
That ordinance, in turn, was an offshoot to the hostility that characterized Mayor Tomas Osmeña's relation with Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia following the scrapping of the deal.
That the measure targets only provincial lots in the city belies the motive of whoever hatched the idea: it will have the effect of limiting Capitol's options on the lot.
Which is a strategy that City Hall initially unveiled early last year when the Council ordered a moratorium on developments in the Banilad area, thereby affecting the Ciudad project, which is supposed to rise on a 2.8-hectare Provincial Government lot.
Proof
This strategy is in itself proof that there is no way the situation before the land swap deal collapsed can ever be relived again; the stance of both sides has solidified.
It is not surprising therefore that Provincial Board Member Juan Bolo's suggestion during the Council's session last week for the reopening of talks on the failed land swap deal revived instead old animosities and a result in a replay of last year's verbal exchange.
Even the blame-throwing is back.
Dead
The land swap deal is, by all intents and purposes, dead, contrary to the recent public pronouncements of officials of both City Hall and Capitol.
While hope, as the cliché says, springs eternal, that may not apply in the land swap deal and, by extension, the mayor's current relationship with the governor.
Incidentally, the hostility between Capitol and City Hall died down when both sides no longer talked about each other and instead focused mainly on their jobs.
That is something that those who are resurrecting the land swap deal talk may have to consider now that the verbal exchange on the issue has resurfaced.
