Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Barrita: Turf wars By Eddie O. Barrita Small Bites
MOVES to create new congressional seats in Cebu may set off a turf war among incumbent congressmen.
Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz (Cebu, 6th district) earlier said Rep. Red Durano (Cebu, 5th district) won’t object to her proposal to lump Liloan with Consolacion and Cordova to form a new district.
She spoke too soon, as Rep. Durano now insists Liloan should stay with the 5th district.
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Cordova will be left out when the 6th district’s highly-urbanized cities, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, will each become a legislative district.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who has big dreams for Cordova, wants to annex it to his city to form a third district.
Dream on.
Provincial officials have other plans for Cordova.
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Mayor Osmeña lauded Vice Mayor Mike Rama for winning the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines presidency.
That makes Vice Mayor Mike a national figure although the national post eats up some of his time with his constituents.
No, that’s not the reason the mayor and the councilors helped him win.
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Filipinos are among the happiest people in Asia, an environmentalist said.
That’s why the still nameless Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center doctors and nurses howled during Jan-jan’s rectal surgery to remove a body spray canister.
They can still laugh at the misfortunes of others.
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But there was no truth to rumors their raucous laughter has anything to do with reports of a rice shortage which, for now, was proven untrue.
Rumors have it that when the doctors finally extricated the canister and shouted “baby out,” they laughed when they found no rice.
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It was rather unfortunate that a successful surgical operation that saved Jan-Jan from a life-threatening crisis instead cast a light on how doctors treat patients.
As a senior journalist would say, often with a sigh, “If they only knew what the headlines would say.”
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Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States for the first time as pontiff.
Before the papal visit, many Americans were clueless on the leader of the world’s over a billion Catholics.
