IN A RUSHED and expectedly short interview with Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama, aired Thursday, October 5, 2023 on “The Not-So-Late Show with Jason Monteclar,” the mayor said that whenever he travels, his family always goes with him. His wife and his son cannot not go with him because, he said, he’s “newly married” and he didn’t do any traveling before with his first wife and children.
Mayor Rama’s marriage is almost two years old: He married Malou Jimenez Mandanat, 32, on wedding day (October 28, 2021), when he introduced her for the first time to the public. The mayor was then 67 and their son, one year old. He previously married lawyer Araceli Lim Francisco, with whom he had two children. His marriage to Malou occurred 21 years after his first marriage was annulled in 2000.
That may explain why new mom and new son always tag along with dad and that’s normal to him but, Monteclar asked, can the mayor “categorically say” that public money is not spent for his new family’s travel?
‘WILL NEVER DO THAT.’ “Wala, wala… I’ll never do that,” Mayor Rama said, obviously referring to the spending of government funds for his family’s joining the trip.
Most likely covered by that vigorous assurance are all his trips abroad, no exception. Not covered must be the question of whether a private person or entity picked up the tab. In the latest flag-raising ceremony at City Hall (October 2, 2023), the mayor implied that in the next elections, they’ll need funds and will raise funds but not from the government (“dili gyud mangawat,” he said repetitively).
Monteclar dropped the subject and picked up another. The family trip issue now hangs thus: Monteclar had accused, or suspected, the mayor of traveling abroad with his new family in tow and using public funds. The mayor told Monteclar in his face and on camera that “no, no, it’s not true.”
STILL UNRESOLVED. Someday the dispute will be resolved when financial records become public. They are, legally speaking, already public records but until they see light, the people, critics or supporters of Mayor Mike or “the general public,” will not be sure.
The trip of the mayor, with three other officials, to Canada, was made from August 19 to 27, 2022 but COA publicized its initial finding only in July 2023 and until now it’s not known if the spending -- then called “irregular” by auditors -- was finally allowed or disallowed. The COA audit though didn’t show that travel expenses of the mayor’s wife and son were included in the flagged amount: Was it one reason for the alleged irregularity?
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FLOODS, CPA. On the incidents of flooding, which has drawn a lot of flak against the mayor and his dispute with Cebu Port Authority over the Compania Maritima property, here’s where Mayor Rama displayed a streak of figurative violence and where he didn’t:
[] “We destroy, destroy gyud,” Rama said about the obstruction -- allegedly caused by Cebu Country Club in Barangay Kasambagan and Gaisano Country Mall in Barangay Apas -- to the flow of rainwater. It can be done and he’ll do it, he told Monteclar.
[] What do you want me to do, the mayor asked, “mag-Rambo ko, unya rakrakan nako sila sa ilang gibuhat?” That, even though the CPA, he said, “desecrated our territory.” “A matter of principle, not priorities,” he corrected Monteclar.
WHERE THE DESECRATION. Mayor Rama is apparently smarting from the Regional Trial Court (RTC) ruling that the Maritima property is owned by the National Government through the Cebu Port Authority. The RTC rejected the city’s motion for reconsideration last August 18, 2023.
Mayor Rama cannot blame CPA or the court for that, not even the City Legal Office. The court presumably based its decision on the law and the facts, which a higher court might overrule or uphold. Until the appellate court, preferably the Supreme Court, decides in favor of the City, CPA’s use of the property now is not unlawful and cannot be deemed usurpation of city property.
What must have stung the mayor was that CPA proceeded to build a high-rise building allegedly without applying for a building permit, whose grant or denial properly belongs to the Office of the Building Official (OBO), which is an agency of the City Government, which Rama heads. If there’s a “desecration” against the City, that must be it.
'SINGAPOOL.' The ribbing about the slogan “Singapore-like” Cebu City (such as, one related to the floods,” Singapool,” which the mayor himself cited as example), does that not show, Monteclar asked, the sloganeering has “backfired”?
“No, no, no,” said the mayor, “people even dance to the tune” in any place he visits and the “Singapore-like Cebu City Dance” jingle is played. That may be true, just as in equal measure some people poke fun at City Hall whenever they talk about floods, garbage and other undesirable things here and compare them to the situation in Singapore. Like most slogans, “Singapore-like Cebu City” apparently has worked both ways.