Saturday, June 07, 2008 Editorials: City Hall as rice distributor
GOVERNMENT officials should handle the task of delivering basic and other important services to the people---or at least that is the ideal setup.
Ideal situations in our kind of governance, however, are difficult to come by considering the mindset of politicians in and outside the government.
That's why even such a simple, though important, job of distributing cheaper National Food Authority (NFA) rice in Cebu City is turning controversial.
Image
NFA officials may have honestly seen the need to course the rice distribution to City Hall and City Hall may have indeed wanted to help its poor constituents.
Unfortunately for City Hall officials, their previous acts have painted an image of politicians who are vindictive and eager to gain political mileage at every turn.
The political opposition, of course, is not helping the situation any with its poking and its parrying Mayor Tomas Osmena's insults with verbal assaults of its own.
What is gained is the tainted image of city politics, affecting governance.
Distribution
Osmena virtually recognized this when he laid down the “methodology” of City Hall's rice distribution, suggesting the presence of opposition monitors.
He even had to choose between letting barangay officials, which should include opposition barangay captains, or City Hall employees do the distributing.
Which means that if political mileage is to be gained by Osmena and his group, they'd rather not give the opposition any role in the distribution.
Transfer
The goal is to ensure that the rice will end up in the kitchen not of City Hall's chosen people but of the city's really needy.
With controversy starting to swirl around the distribution process, one doubts whether such goal will be achieved if not in real terms at least in perception.
Given this situation, it may be good for NFA officials to assess the idea of letting local officials distribute the cheap rice or revert back to the tried and tested methodology.
Which is, assign it to apolitical sectors, like rice traders.
