Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Malilong: Picking on a child By Frank malilong The Other Side
HE HAS a running word war with Gov. Gwen Garcia. Every now and then, he trades insults with Lahug Barangay Captain Mary Ann de los Santos. Does Mayor Tommy Osmeña have a habit of picking a fight with women?
But he did quarrel with then governor Tingting dela Serna, too. Even Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was not spared from his sharp tongue at the height of the “salvaging” of suspected criminals in the city. And wasn’t Rep. Eddie Gullas the mayor’s “flavor of the day” until recently?
The mayor fought with Garcia over an abor-ted swap of properties between the Province and the City; with de los Santos over how Lahug should be run; and with Gullas over conflicting claims on the ownership of a portion of the South Road Properties. I can’t exactly recall anymore the root of his quarrel with dela Serna but, as with the others, it must have had something to do with public interest.
The mayor has a temper, no doubt about that. He does not pick his targets, which is not necessarily bad unless…
I read in the Cebu Daily News (CDN) yesterday that the mayor got so peeved by the accusation of a manicurist who called him and Councilor Gerry Carillo liars that he said that he would rather help other children than keep his promise to provide a scholarship to the complaining mother’s six-year-old daughter.
The mayor, according CDN, admitted that he promised to help educate the girl as a reward for her act of heroism in saving her brother and a cousin from a fire that gutted her uncle’s house. He, however, forgot about it and was sorry for his lapse in memory but he would not allow himself to be “blackmailed” into keeping his promise.
Being called a liar is not the nicest thing to hear but must the mayor stoop to the level of his accuser? Has it occurred to him that in punishing the mother for her wrongful interpretation of his solitary act of amnesia, he is actually hitting the child?
It is one thing to quarrel with a governor or a barangay chief over matters of public policy interest; it’s another to oblige an angry mother even if she unreasonably and unfairly calls you names. There is absolutely no public interest involved in reneging on a promise to a little girl that her future was secure because the City’s fathers would see to that.
Tommy must have been very upset when told of the name-calling. I would like to believe that his threat was a knee-jerk reaction, given his legendary temper. Now that he has time to reflect, the mayor should, however, realize that one should not always fight fire with fire especially if he is the mayor and the party on the other side is not his size.
