Thursday, May 29, 2008 Espinoza: Mayor Radaza still after Pelaez By Elias L. Espinoza Free Zone
THE request of Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza for the police to look into the possibility that tax evaders had a hand in the death of lawyer Dick Sison was a deliberate slur on some businessmen.
Radaza’s letter was actually a jab, disguised as a request, at businessman Efrain Pelaez, who filed graft charges against the mayor with the Ombudsman on the purchase of overpriced computers.
A friend even doubts if the mayor was the one who wrote that letter to the police in the city and the region. The letter also contained a request to assign security personnel to City Attorney Joseph Lim.
It’s a shame that Mayor Radaza did not have any qualms in using the death of his lawyer to hit back at his critics, who are mostly businessmen in the city. Note that in barber shops, allegations are even worse because the mayor is pointed to as a suspect. Of course, these are all rumors.
It looks like the mayor would not stop going after Pelaez and the other members of the Mactan Island chamber of commerce who are critical of the corruption in his administration until he gets even with them.
Mayor Radaza should better focus his attention on the state of Lapu-Lapu City and in rendering better services than attending to matters already addressed by the police. Topping the list of complaints by businessmen is the traffic mess in
Basak during peak hours. Second are the bad roads. Third are the unlighted streets.
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“People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes,” says Abigail Van Buren. Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes has perhaps taken this to heart that he now realizes that squabbling with the opposition would lead him nowhere.
But I wish he will be true to his words that he would finish the projects left by his predecessor. The mayor should have done that at the start of his administration. Or better still, he should have come up with more projects and improved the city’s services rather than trying to undo what the previous administration did.
An example is the mini park in front of City Hall that he demolished on the very day he assumed office. It was grossly ill-advised. Now City Hall looks like any other ordinary edifice---it has lost its grandeur.
The other horrible thing he did was close the Mandaue City College (MCC), a move that many people suspect was his way of paying back his political supporter who leased a city lot that would have been used by the school.
I cannot imagine what the poor students and their parents felt after Mayor Cortes ordered the closure of MCC just because Dr. Paulus Mariae Cañete defied his order to vacate his post in the college.
There are other better things that Mayor Cortes could have done, like improving traffic in the city and the other basic services, instead of him acting like he is still in euphoria over his victory against his opponent in last year’s polls.
Of course, the mayor could have rebuked his critics and aped the famous one-liner of former governor Lito Osmeña: “Magbuot mo?” But what his constituents are expecting from his leadership, as a young executive, is change and better administration.
By the way, mayor, P. Remedio St. (which connects M. L. Quezon Ave. and A. S. Fortuna Ave.) that motorists use as diversion road because of the ongoing construction of a flyover in Banilad now needs attention.
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Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has just issued a warning to robbers and thieves by dangling rewards to the police for every robber arrested or killed. Criminals should better leave the city now or the summary killing count will double.
