Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Malilong: Sobriety By Frank Malilong The Other Side
IT looks like the chasm that divides the political leaders of Mandaue is so deep and so wide that not even a prince of the Church can bridge it.
The ink had hardly died on the story on Cardinal Vidal’s appeal for unity among Mandauehanons than came another report that the former president of the city’s public college has been arrested for allegedly plotting to steal documents from the college and to kill Mayor Jonas Cortes.
That was enough to spark another round of the now familiar trade of insults between the mayor’s camp and the opposition. To think that both Cortes and Vice Mayor Pontico Fortuna, who with their respective allies, were present during the mass where the appeal was made, publicly agreed with the cardinal on the need to unite.
Vidal’s reference to hypocrisy was prophetic.
Paulus Canete was framed up, cry Fortuna and his cohorts. Not so, say the mayor and his band. It was a legitimate police operation.
Hiring someone to steal and presumably destroy vital public documents is a serious matter. Getting the same man to assassinate the mayor is even graver. Every one has reason to be concerned and I mean every law-abiding and peace-loving citizen, not just the warring officials of Mandaue.
I was hoping for the officials to appeal for sobriety and let the investigation of the case take its course. I was not prepared for their turning the affair into another arena to fight their propaganda war.
Was Canete framed? Was he entrapped? These are inevitable questions that we all have a right to ask. But from whom?
Certainly not from polluted sources, such as the warring politicians of Mandaue. In fact, they too ought to have asked the questions themselves instead of offering their unsolicited answers. That would have been prudent.
But prudence appears to be the least concern of the rabid partisans of Mandaue. They cannot afford to let anything pass without thoroughly squeezing it for its propaganda value.
Somewhere out there, the truth lies, waiting to be uncovered. But no, the truth can rot for all that the warring parties care. It’s not about Paulus Canete being guilty or innocent. It’s about how much damage one party can inflict on the other, using his case.
The city’s founding fathers would never have imagined that their once peaceful community, where everyone was on first- name basis with each other, could be torn apart by such a bitter, if childish, conflict. They must be turning in their graves.
