Saturday, July 12, 2008 Carvajal: Corruption is the issue By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
LEST we forget, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza is facing at least two corruption charges, namely, his part in the lamppost scam and his purchase of over-priced computers. Only the courts, therefore, can clear him of these charges. But the way he goes about defending himself in the forum of public opinion only serves to make us suspect what the truth could be like.
One wonders if the intensity of his public relations blitz is not in inverse proportion to the weakness of his defense in court. For if he is confident the accusations of corruption hurled against him are without basis, then why the contrived self-serving declarations of support and adulation from an obviously very partial City Council? If the City Council indeed adores him, this adoration certainly cannot acquit him of the charges.
Next came the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) study. Again, granted that AIM is right about the competitiveness of Lapu-Lapu City, what relevance does this finding have to the corruption issue? He is not charged with being uncompetitive but with corruption. It does not help him either that people are finding out the AIM conclusion was based on a questionnaire that the city was asked to fill out.
Finally, the other day came the full page paid advertisement of the Mactan North Reclamation and Development Project or MNRDP. What for and why only now defend it before the public when he had it approved without even the governor knowing it? Anyway, I find two problems with the advertisement.
First, it declared everything openly about the project except the cost which we last heard runs into billions of pesos.
The second problem has to do with one of the objectives of the project which is “to be the primary engine of transforming the City into a world-class metropolis.” The primary engine for growth and development of any place is not a big project, which could be just another source of corrupt money, but rather good governance by honest, competent and responsible local officials.
I have travelled to many world-class cities and I do not see any in this country.
Neither Manila nor Cebu can qualify as world class. They cannot even be described as aspiring to become world-class because the attempts by local officials to graduate, for instance, from primitive roads and drainage and garbage collection systems are too half-hearted to pass for serious.
Everything, therefore, hinges on the results of the court case filed against the mayor. Should the courts find him guilty, then the MNRDP would have been just another source of corruption money. Should the court exonerate him then it could be “a vision made real.” I suggest we wait for the verdict of the courts.
After all, the issue is not competitiveness but corruption.
