Saturday, February 02, 2008 Shush, Tomas tells council on project
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday asked the City Council to stop playing politics and let the flyover construction resume, unless they can give an alternative plan.
Osmeña said only the Supreme Court can stop or postpone the project, and not the council.
“They’re just playing on the public’s sentiment at our expense.... They have nothing new to offer. Their use of language when they say we have to prepare the people mentally, to me it’s yabag (silly). How can they ask the people to be prepared when the council itself is not mentally prepared?” he said.
In his news conference yesterday, the mayor said he is not convinced that the postponement the council is seeking is justified, especially since the council asked for more time to study the matter.
Although the council can ask the Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the project, he reminded the councilors that the council is not the City Government.
“Technically speaking, you can’t stop the project, not even the court can stop it. All these comments are just deceiving the public. Not even a judge can issue a TRO on infrastructure, ang council pa kaha? It looks like it (they’re playing politics)... It’s very clear that there’s a strong public sentiment and nagsakay-sakay lang sila (they’re just pandering to that),” Osmeña said.
‘Not in the mood’
“I’m not in the mood for another delay only for the sake of ‘pity the people.’ That’s just not acceptable, unless they have something new to offer. All this is just designed to make me and Raul del Mar look bad... but this project will push through,” he continued.
In a privilege speech last Wednesday, Vice Mayor Michael Rama asked the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 to consider postponing the project again for one to two months, a motion that the council approved.
When reached for comment yesterday, Rama declined from reacting to the mayor’s statements, saying that the council only did its job.
“There were certain concerns received by the council that were placed in the agenda and we had to act on it. We were just exercising what ought to be done by a legislative body,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
Osmeña said he will let Rama and the council take care of the traffic problem in Banilad and allow them to fine-tune whatever traffic mitigating measures they decide to adopt.
He said, though, that the scheme and traffic rules that would be implemented should be simple enough for everyone to understand, particularly the jeepney drivers.
“All this is part of the growing-up process. This guy (Rama) is going to be mayor one day, let him learn. I will just be at the back but once I see that it’s not working, then enough is enough,” said Osmeña. (LCR)
