Friday, October 24, 2008 Wenceslao: Politicizing the Tesda issue By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeńa, straight from the US where he is being treated for cancer of the urinary bladder, just couldn’t help acting like a general ordering another assault at the Capitol. The issue is the Province’s going to court to evict the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) 7 from the lot it is occupying.
I won’t blame City Hall for doing this because last September the Provincial Board (PB) approved a resolution withdrawing and terminating the authority of the Cebu City Zoo from using the province-owned lot in Barangay Kalunasan. Osmeńa has refused to let go of the lot the zoo is occupying, and the PB resolution must have infuriated him.
The tug-of-war for the Tesda 7 lot is not new. Years ago a writer hand carried his letter for the Sun.Star op-ed section protesting the plan of the Capitol to get back the lot, which was donated by the Province to the now non-existent National Manpower and Youth Council. Apparently negotiations with Tesda bogged down, thus Capitol’s suit.
The offer was for Tesda to transfer to another province-owned lot in Sudlon, Lahug, but this was not accepted. Why the refusal puzzles me. Tesda is not a supermarket whose profitability could diminish if transferred. It is a training center that can function better in the calm environment of Sudlon than in the busy area near Waterfront-Lahug.
But Tesda officials must have their own reasons for holding on to the property. What worries me is that the entry of City Hall would politicize the issue and prevent a peaceful resolution of the conflict. That would be bad for Tesda 7, as it could end up with nothing eventually. There is still no substitute to ironing out problems through dialogue.
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All the fuss about the bad smell emanating from the Inayawan dump site just because a firm that rented a lot at the South Road Properties (SRP) complained about it is not amusing, especially to residents of the nearby White Road in Inayawan. I would say that the mayor and the management team now running City Hall were not born yesterday.
Weeks ago, I accompanied my wife to a wake for one of her relatives at White Road. What immediately caught my attention when we got off the cab was the stench. We were still far from the landfill, so I thought the smell was the accumulation of the odor left behind by garbage trucks continuously passing the area day in and day out.
That City Hall never showed concern for the stench endured by White Road residents for years now and rushed to put perfume on the dump when Bigfoot complained betrayed their leaning---and it is not on the side of ordinary constituents.
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Mike Cohen, who owns the blog www.mikeinmanila.info, emailed me a reaction to my column yesterday about the presidential elections in the US. His letter was long, but here’s a point that should concern us Cebuanos:
“Interesting to note was another global poll by Gallup where John McCain, because of his non-critical view on outsourcing…did well in five countries: Cambodia, Georgia, Vietnam, Laos, and the Philippines. Barack Obama has been seen as critical of Asia in general, ironic considering he grew up in Jakarta for a few years and Hawaii…
“In every speech he (Obama) bashes outsourcing…There's some irony there considering how a lot of his campaign has been so well run when outsourced in part to companies based in part in Cebu…”
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
