Friday, February 22, 2008 Why pick Saavedra as awardee for city Charter Day?: Capitol
IF he has his way, Capitol consultant on information Rory Jon Sepulveda wants Cebu City officials to explain to the public the criteria and selection process of the awardees for the 71st Cebu City Charter Day celebration on Sunday.
Sepulveda issued the statement after he was informed that businessman Crisologo Saavedra, a critic of Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, is among the awardees of the anniversary.
“Does he deserve the award? Cebu City officials should be the one to answer this as we absolutely have no knowledge as to the criteria and the selection process,” Sepulveda told Sun.Star Cebu in a text message.
The Cebu City Government justified that Saavedra was picked as one of the awardees for exposing the alleged overpricing of the decorative lampposts and the construction of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) used during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit last year.
Speaking out
Saavedra will be the lone recipient of Charter Day Legislative Award.
“We’re awarding Cris Saavedra for speaking out. The poor guy is all by himself. We have to recognize him for speaking out on some issues and for demanding transparency, for pointing out there’s another P261 million that has to be paid for the CICC,” Mayor Tomas Osmeña had said.
Osmeña was also quoted as saying that a lot of names were proposed for the list of awardees, but he warned they should be careful in choosing the individuals and institutions to keep the integrity of the annual awards.
“Everybody’s throwing in different names and I’m very careful about that because we’re cheapening the awards of the city,” the mayor said.
However, Sepulveda disagreed. The Capitol consultant said that Saavedra spoke only against the Provincial Government, and not City Hall, thus could not be considered as speaking on behalf of the suppressed individual.
Sepulveda, in previous interview, said that he got information that Saavedra is getting support from a high official from the City. He, however, did not identify the official.
“I even received report that Saavedra was even given a service firearm for his protection,” said Sepulveda in Cebuano.
Aside from Saavedra, Cebu City Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. and 70 other individuals and institutions are among the awardees during the 71st Cebu City Charter Day celebration.
Osmeña said that Pe, head of the City Council committee on public order and safety. will be getting one of the Mayor’s Special Awards.
“Because he (Pe) does most of the running around in the city. And we have to recognize that because he’s really very diligent,” the mayor said of Pe.
The 15 contingents from Cebu Province that participated in the Sinulog sa Lalawigan will also receive the Mayor’s Special Awards.
President Arroyo was earlier invited to attend the activities, which would have coincided with the formal inauguration of the renovated
But because the inauguration was moved to March, the President will not be attending the Charter Day celebration.
The awardees for outstanding individuals are furniture designer and exporter Kenneth Cobonpue, fashion designer Kate Torralba, Maria del Rosario Aboitiz, Sebastian Niez and Nicolas Pacaña.
For helping the City Government market the South Road Properties in Japan and for promoting Cebu City abroad, officials of the Philippine International Trading Corp. based in Japan will also be receiving the Mayor’s Special Award, along with officials of Haarlemmermeer City Government in Netherlands. (GMD)
