Thursday, August 21, 2008 Gwen invites Tom to RDC, over Lapu recla
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña should enlighten himself before commenting on any issue outside his jurisdiction.
With these words, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday confirmed she will invite her vocal critic to attend the next Regional Development Council (RDC) 7 meeting, which she chairs.
Last Tuesday, the mayor said that Lapu-Lapu City should be allowed to pursue its P10-billion reclamation project and that its officials should not allow the governor’s “jealousy” to get in their way.
The mayor said that the RDC Central Visayas should not block a development project proposed by a local government unit.
“As far as I know, this is the first case where the RDC is suppressing a local government initiative…If you ask me, and I only read the news, she (Garcia) is just jealous,” Osmeña was quoted as saying.
But Capitol information consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda said that Osmeña should have checked his facts about the proposed Mactan reclamation before granting media interviews, since it appears the mayor was a bit “confused.”
Osmeña was not at the recent meeting when the RDC 7 passed two resolutions asking President Arroyo to reconsider her approval of the Mactan reclamation, citing the lack of consultations and its proponents’ failure to follow required processes.
(He sent a representative.)
Sepulveda recalled that Lapu-Lapu had announced it wanted to have the reclamation project thoroughly scrutinized.
The Capitol consultant added that Garcia has read the brief of the proposed reclamation project but did not even issue a statement to the media and instead waited for the RDC meeting.
The governor’s father, Rep. Pablo Garcia (Cebu, 2nd district), and brother, Rep. Pablo John Garcia (Cebu, 3rd district), also worked to defer the implementation of the reclamation project, pointing out the lack of endorsements from agencies. (GMD)
