Friday, April 04, 2008 Seares: Will Tomas apologize? By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
I SUSPECT that Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña spends his time looking for ways to insult people he hates in between looking for ways to sell the South Road Properties (SRP) he adores.
He still has to show substantial success in the second. SRP as source of wealth and jobs remains a mirage while the humongous debt is menacingly real.
But he's a howling success in the first. (Actually, he snickers while his victim howls.) City streets are littered with maimed or slain reputations of people he crossed swords with.
The scheme is plain enough: ridicule or embarrass the target, the intensity proportionate to the degree of dislike which prompts the attack.
He has used it in collecting taxes. Reluctant payors cough up after being drubbed in public. Or in making an office or official do things the mayor's way.
Favored devices: conferring dubious honor (e.g. "kalabasa award") or withholding or threatening to cut stipend or subsidy from the city. Hard to count the times he's pissed off at someone or something.
He's the mayor
The prop heightens effect of the word or phrase that rips and slashes. But why?
Why he's being mean? It's in the bones or it's a way of getting what he wants.
Why the press laps it up? He's leader, role model and repository of virtues and values. Or he's not. Good Lord, he's mayor of this great, second-to-none city.
When he said he'll donate a fire extinguisher and a pail to Oslob, a parody of Capitol's alleged failure to save the town church from fire, Gov. Gwen Garcia asked him to apologize.
He might---if he can add a dash of scorn to the apology.
