I CAME to Cagayan de Oro at a time when there were new players in the political arena in the likes of Nene Pimentel and Pablo Magtajas. There was not much controversy way back then as the triumvirate of political power with Dongkoy Emano was in safe hands with Cory Aquino was President.
But when Pagcor decided to establish the casino at Pryce Plaza, thousands including myself went to the streets to protest. We barricaded the road leading to the hotel the day before it was to open and had caught then Governor Emano and the rest of VIPs by surprise, who were given a pre-opening privilege. With Pimentel and Magtajas on the opposite side on the issue with Emano, it looked like the political landscape was already in a state of flux.
We lost the case at the Supreme Court but President Ramos won for us by acceding to our demands and ordering the closure of the casino. “If that is what the people of Cagayan de Oro want then so be it,” he said to me personally at the Manila Hotel at a chance meeting with the President. We were sued by Pryce Plaza for civil damages but that too was eventually withdrawn.
As how it has been for most of our leaders, the almost invisible geographical boundary of the city and the province of Misamis Oriental saw a revolving door of governors and congressmen of the province becoming mayors and congressmen of the city and vice versa. It was in 1998 when Emano did what the others did before him, and was elected as mayor of the city.
I was then a member of the Oro Jaycees and chaired the project Earth Day. We sponsored a concert featuring local bands in their original compositions on the environment, a children’s painting contest, a public exhibit of the Jaycees in Cagayan de Oro and march and rally to call for the protection of the environment. The Canoys had a TV talk show program then and I guested to promote our project. It was there where I heard that Kagayanons are blessed to have not experienced any natural calamity, that the city has been storm-free.
But I chose not to be so confident. I proposed another project for the Jaycees to conduct an awareness campaign to protect and preserve our rivers. CDO is traversed by six rivers, and with a narrow strip of plain bounded by mountains in the south and the Macajalar Bay in the north, I feared that there is cause to worry. And that was the first time I met then Mayor Emano, at his temporary home in Macasandig. I introduced myself and asked for his endorsement for the project. I suppose that being married to the granddaughter of the late Mayor Oloy Roa was the reason he gave his nod. And in a few days, I sat and waiting for the City Council Committee on the Environment to open its session to formally endorse our project.
A few minutes after, two men whom I have met on social occasions came in and they too had a project seeking endorsement. They were going to ask the city for thousands of pesos to do coastal clean-up. I was happy at first to find myself with two others concerned for the environment. But further on, one of them whispered “pangwarta ra man ni bai.”
Stunned but managing to smile politely, I stayed quiet for a few minutes, stood up and went to the council secretary to say that I had an emergency to attend to. I did not go back to City Hall, and withdrew the proposed project with the Jaycees. We were going to raise P50,000 for an information drive to raise consciousness about protecting and preserving Cagayan de Oro river, and here were two men asking for four times the amount for personal gain. (to be continued)