Saturday, April 05, 2008 Editorial: Fire extinguisher, cigarette carton
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, considering his nature, must be smiling at the reaction of Capitol officials and some town mayors to his “pakulo” re: the fire in Oslob.
They seem to have taken seriously the mayor’s “I will donate” a fire extinguisher and a pail to Oslob, his way of hitting Capitol for its “neglect” of a town’s basic need.
Not that the mayor should not be criticized for his childish actions or that people should shrug their shoulders and dismiss the act as another case of Tomas being Tomas.
Osmena seems to have no qualms insulting persons or institutions that catch his fancy partly because he has been allowed to get away with it a number of times.
No deterrence
But then again, there's not enough proof that getting the flak would deter the mayor from hurling insults considering that it may have become second nature to him.
The only time he backed off after being publicly flogged was after he closed one of the gates of the Basilica del Sto. Nino to punish erring sidewalk vendors in the area.
He reopened the gate, with a heavy heart.
One doubts, however, whether demand for an apology from Capitol officials and other provincial groups for the latest insult the mayor hurled will eventually have the same effect.
Instead, the reaction may have invited the opposite response from the mayor because it is apparent that his act was intended to get public attention to a critique that was getting stale.
Without the fire extinguisher and pail spiel, the mayor was but repeating the reaction of Msgr. Achilles Dakay to the fire, which burned the church and the convent.
And Capitol has already answered at length Dakay's criticism.
Other issues
Among those who lashed back at Osmeña, only Rep. Pablo John Garcia may have understood the mayor's intention---his cigarette carton response was very PJ.
It was also folksy and sarcastic: a cigarette carton is a sari-sari store's version of creditors' list, thus the act was meant to be symbolic of City Hall's financial woes.
In the end, however, one hopes that public officials would focus on more important matters of governance than engaging in a kind of verbal exchange like this one.
