IF, and I mean if, I lay off from criticizing Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella in the next few weeks, it’s because I believe in giving him a chance.
It has nothing to do with his lifting of the liquor ban.
From the very beginning, I never questioned the mayor’s integrity. In fact, I dubbed him “Mr. Nice Guy” because that’s how he is described by people who know him and I have no reason not to take their word for it, especially since I know some of them and I trust their judgment.
Although I have to admit that I was perturbed when he imposed the liquor ban out of the blue right when the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) first arrived on our shores.
The move caught me and many others like me off guard.
It wasn’t election time, for Pete’s sake.
One of the advantages of being in the media is I get to find out about a news item before the rest of the public does. So I had the heads-up about the ban and was able to rush to the grocery and buy half a month’s supply because I really thought it would be temporary. You know, a few days.
Don’t forget, the ban was in place before the mayor announced that the city would be under an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) starting on March 28.
But I was wrong. The days turned into weeks. The weeks turned into a month.
Regrets. I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.
I should have known that this pandemic would not be over in a matter of weeks or even months.
I should have known that the world as we knew it would be forever changed.
I should have bought enough liquor to tide me over until all of this would be a distant memory. But boy was I wrong.
I ran out of supply during the first week of the ECQ.
So my first reaction was to blame the person who imposed the ban.
Seriously. What was the correlation between liquor and the novel coronavirus?
I believed the mayor had better things to do than to pick on one sector of society that contributed a lot to the city’s economy. Imagine the income lost by sari-sari store owners because they couldn’t sell liquor. How about the distillers? The last time I checked, and I did check, they were feeling the pinch.
But I am glad that Labella had an epiphany. As one fellow lush commented, “Some good news for a change.”
Apparently, the mayor does live up to his nickname. Wink!