Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Editorials: Offer of Fernandez, Villarete to resign
CITY Administrator Francisco “Bimbo” Fernandez and City Planning and Development Coordinator Nigel Paul Villarete are among Cebu City Hall’s reliable hands and two of Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s trusted bureaucrats.
That both are talking at this stage about resignation—whether courtesy or irrevocable—while Vice Mayor Michael Rama is acting mayor is therefore both surprising and revealing.
While the two officials claim they have good working relationship with Rama, which could be true considering that they are more bureaucrats than politicians, the offer to resign hinges on the perception they are more of Osmeña than Rama boys.
In the current setup, wherein the mayor is but a text message away even if he is undergoing treatment for his urinary bladder cancer, there’s the belief that Fernandez and Villarete (the former more so) are not that attentive to the vice mayor.
The offer to resign could therefore be more of an attempt to clear the air.
Mayor’s health
But the move can be interpreted in another way: that the two officials may have felt that the mayor’s health condition may be worse than what he tended to portray earlier and that he may either be out longer than promised or could not finish his term.
A shorter absence of a chief executive does not normally merit talks of courtesy resignations.
That, in a sense, was Rama’s point when he told Sun.Star Cebu in reaction to the reported statements of Fernandez and Villarete: “Why should anyone resign? Remember nga ang akong pagka-mayor acting ra.”
But then again, Rama may be acting mayor until 2010—meaning, the bottom line in this courtesy resignation issue could really be certainty as far as leadership of the City is concerned.
Resignation
The key there is for the mayor to be objective in assessing his health condition in relation to his actual ability to continue performing the function of mayor, something that he can start thinking about as his chemotherapy sessions continues.
If the treatment will really take long and if he honestly feels he may not physically be able to function well for long because of his illness, it will be good for the City he has professed to love that he fully turns over they reins of the City to Rama.
That will end the current uncertainty over who between Osmeña and Rama should really be listened to, allow Rama to be more daring in making decisions at City Hall and make the courtesy resignation offer of Fernandez and Villarete less surprising.
