PEOPLE talk about...
* RECOGNITION OF MACTAN-CEBU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, given by the 2019 International Architecture Awards, airports and transportation category. GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Cooperation (GMCAC) president Louie Ferrer received the award. The design, the citation said, "captures the country's warmth and hospitality in a Filipiniana-inspired design, built with first-world engineering."
When the terminal opened in July 2018, then Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña said it looked like "a poultry-house" in Bantayan, a criticism which, he said, prompted Megawide to change the design.
Change of mind
Only last June 19, less than a month ago, former President and former House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced in Cebu City there would be "no more Malacañang sa Sugbo." MSS was where she held office during her visits to the city when she was president.
The building called Adwana, converted by GMA in 2004 as Malacañang sa Sugbo, was owned by Bureau of Customs under the Department of Finance.
GMA during her Cebu visit last June said the government "was now in the procurement stage in the rehabilitation" of the building.
She must have changed her mind since then though.
It appears that the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) has been given the use of Adwana for the museum's home in Cebu.
And the chairperson of NMP's board of trustees is, drum roll, GMA's only daughter Luli Arroyo-Bernas, appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 6, 2018 when her mom was still House speaker.
Aside from Luli being her only daughter, GMA must have found compelling reasons to take back what she said about Adwana going back to the Bureau of Customs. (See "Seares: Where Malacañang in Cebu most likely will go: not Customs" in SunStar Cebu Opinion.)
'Usurping' functions
The current top rumor at Cebu City Hall concerns a high public official who has been dating a woman, a relationship that has caused a rift between him and his siblings and led to the departure of the couple from the family compound and its ancestral home.
The story first broke out in Bobby Nalzaro's column in SunStar. It didn't name the official but from the few details given -- a bachelor and a former City Hall employee; he living in his family's compound and having other girl friends and she having made him "crazy in love" -- he was identifiable, particularly among City Hall employees and frequent visitors.
What's wrong with two persons with no "legal impediment" dating? Their private and personal activities shouldn't even be publicized.
The problem, it seems, is that the woman is allegedly "poking her fingers" (as quoted by Bobby in a subsequent column) into public functions of her lover. It amounts to illicit usurpation of functions. Her signature does not appear in any office document, which makes her exercise of power unaccountable.
She can be an adviser, even on official tasks of her man, but she can't flaunt her influence or perform any government function in his name.
Bad for the official and the starting administration of Mayor Edgar Labella. Bad for him and his family that must still be nursing hopes for his full return to the apex of his political career.
Excess of job applicants
Cebu City Hall watchers say there are about 20,000 job applicants to only a thousand or so job-order or casual positions in the city government.
That shouldn't surprise veteran politicians in the Labella administration. They must have known that their leaders in barangays and sitios expect or hope their selected minions can be employed under the new mayor and vice mayor.
That was true for every new set of rulers at City Hall and is no less true now.
The problem is how to refuse and tell them that City Hall just cannot employ so many people. There's a legal cap on spending for personnel services. But there are also ways to appease. Mayor Labella's predecessor knew how to go after rivals and reward supporters.
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