Friday, April 25, 2008 It’s service that matters: mayor
WHILE surveys on livable cities count, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña says it’s the delivery of quality services that clearly defines the livability of a city.
Osmeña said yesterday that those behind “Best Places to Live” list might not have considered Cebu City’s best practices and services delivered to the public when it ranked the city as the 20th most livable city in the country.
For the mayor, service is what matters.
“These are professors who look at conceptual things...kutob ra sa textbook ba. But if sa actual na, when people need help, the services are there...The people behind this don’t live here, they don’t know what we are doing,” he said in reaction to the city’s ranking.
Osmeña pointed out that in Cebu City, it’s the local government that installed its own traffic lighting system and manages the traffic on its own.
It has even helped other local government units (LGUs) like Davao City in setting up their traffic system.
Best teams
Cebu City also has the best paramedics team, the best shooters in the police force and has efficiently responded to disasters and calamities within the city and as far as Ormoc City and Southern Leyte.
“Look at those other cities on the list. None of those can handle their traffic on their own. We thought we will have a nightmare with the flyover construction in Banilad but look how efficient Citom has been handling it. You talk about livability, I think we’re doing a good job,” he said.
In a list it published recently, business magazine MoneySense ranked Cebu City only as the 20th “Best Place to Live,” with the cities of Bacolod, Makati, Davao, Marikina and Iloilo being named the top five.
Batangas City, Angeles City, Calamba City and General Santos City also fared better than Cebu City in the list published in the March-April issue of MoneySense.
Cities were ranked according to three components that the magazine editors said make a place the best place to live in: standard of living, quality of life and cost of living.
The Philippine Human Development Report of the Human Development Network and the United Nations Development Program-me and results of the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center were used as basis of the new list.
Projects
“I can go on a litany of things if you want to talk about livability...We were able to respond efficiently to calamities like the typhoon Ruping. We have a lot of programs for our children. What other place does that? Service is what matters,” Osmeña said.
He further said the City will take note of survey results but will not react to it. Instead, it will focus on the projects and programs that it has to implement.
“I’m not trying to put the other cities down, but let’s just compare. You can even compare the city with the Province, where are the call centers located? ...These surveys count but my goal as mayor is not to look at them as a priority,” he added. (LCR)
