BACOLOD has enough champions to lead its people and city to greatness.
By a champion I mean people or group who know the histo-geography, fears and anxieties, needs and demands, hopes and aspirations of Bacolodnon, and have demonstrated such in their actions however imperfect they might have been.
Incumbent Mayor Bing Leonardia and his team, and even his predecessors, have all contributed to what Bacolod is, now.
Of course, some have contributed more than the others. It could have been others in past elections, but Mayor Bing is luckier to have been given by the people a consensus of trust to serve longer, and exhaust the best of him.
Some circles believed it was Mayor's Bing popularity, money, machinery that kept him on the reign. It's a bit sweeping judgment and insult to Bacolodnon maturity. I still believe that Bacolodnon is satisfied with him and his team despite or in spite of weaknesses and shortcomings they might have shown.
The problem with some of us, especially the power hungry and the perennial losers among us, we often condition our mindset for perfect leaders in a dynamic and discordant reality, and judge them in their imperfections, then we are making our own fantasy and breeding misery.
Well, let's have our feet on the ground.
We have enough local champions, like the incumbents, some former officials and some aspiring ones.
They are not perfect, maybe not ideal, but they know better, they have vast experience in governance, in administration of various functions to keep everything in order and dynamic while ensuring opportunities for people, services for everyone, and economic growth for city's sustainability and resiliency.
So why does this shadowy united opposition have to import people, unfamiliar with local terrain?
Why brag on imports, projecting them to have the money to beat the incumbents and propel local development, as if Bacolodnons can just be bought by money, and developing Bacolod is all about money?
Why would the perennial losers and their partisans and operators have to claim they are the united opposition?
For everyone's peace of mind I think these claims have to be corrected and put in proper context and perspective.
The best should be united front for better Bacolod, not polarized people for more conflict and destruction.
To rely on imports to beat incumbents is an admission that the so called united opposition has no champion of their own, and are incapable of doing any better.
To posit a mindset that imports with money is the only way to beat the incumbent and spur the full development of the economic potentials of the city is quite a perverted framework and dangerous mind setting.
To keep replacing the people we don't like, to keep destroying people that don't fit our own agenda, to expect different outcomes for old, divisive practices, is political insanity.
It's what Albert Einstein once said that to keep doing things and expect different results is insanity. Nothing substantive is changed. Only in form.
I suggest to united opposition and all to instead explore ways, broaden the breathing space, hold public dialogues, to arrive at consensus for best agenda for a more inclusive, sustainable, resilient, climate change and pandemic adaptive Bacolod, with best mechanisms to implement it.
Don't ask why, just say why not?
Why imports, when we have more local champions to enhance and nurture?
Why divide and polarized, when we have all the reasons to unite?