CITY Mayor Monico maybe right in sustaining the political assault against his predecessor whom he charged to have left a city government deeply indebted. I can imagine that such a huge problem if at all proven true is a daily nightmare for him and his administration.
Former mayor and now Congressman Bing Leonardia however is also right in advising Mayor Monico to spend more of his time in governing and directing the city to address the problems and needs of its people, while giving extra efforts in understanding the financial system and current status of the city's treasury.
It is even better if Monico and Bing, both brilliant leaders and bureaucrats, could get excellent mediators and negotiators who can bring them together on the table and help each other in setting a good management framework for healing their respective wounds, and fulfilling the city's mandate of enacting, implementing and monitoring measures to propel Bacolod to a truly inclusive development process.
In short they could really, and they are actually, capable of joining hands for common good without diminishing their humanity and changing their individual character.
We should take note that Monico and Bing have long been in Bacolod politics, perhaps more than a generation, and with that, they have on their hands the fears and anxieties, needs and demands, hopes and aspirations of Bacolodnons.
But they must first clip their respective ego, set aside their biases towards each other, and put the interests of the people above theirs. Unless this is done, Bacolod will remain a war zone, and a hostage to the whims and caprices of this two big senior citizens of the city.
For this I call on professional mediators and negotiators to come forward and volunteer to draw strategies that will make them join hands and work together as a team while keeping their individuality and character, and their conflicts fairly managed or transformed into platform for social reforms.
I encourage them to learn from the examples of Governor Marañon and Vice Governor Bong Lacson.
They belong to diametrically-opposed political parties yet they been working extra harder since they assumed office not to put their respective politics in the way of making the Provincial Government deliver what is expected of it.
Vice governor Bong could easily render Gov Maranon an inutile governor because of his effective control of the Provincial Board. Yet he refuses to abuse his power and influence. Instead he tries to institute measures that will make the Provincial Government truly a professional one by doing right, good and well.
The case of the governor's request for new loan to complete the Cyber Center project is a classic one in good governance and professionalism.
Vice governor clarified that he is respecting the initiative of the governor and want it completed, but he instituted processes to make sure that the provincial government will not turn out burdened by new loan.
Using his financial expertise and long experience as a chief executive of the city of San Carlos, he was able to reduce the loan to a reasonable one using existing available resources of the province, with everybody taking stock in sound solution-finding.
The result is just amazing, and Governor Marañon and his party-mates are satisfied with the outcome. It is what I call participatory and transparent governance. No one is left out, nobody is blinded, everyone becomes stakeholder and steward of the public trust.
Governor Maranon seems becoming true to his commitment to make good with his fresh mandate. Vice governor Lacson is likewise demonstrating his platform of transformative development, convergence of innovative and progressive ideas, channel of just peace, and friendship with anyone regardless of ideologies and advocacies -- through principled partnership, critical collaboration and unity in pluriformity.
Monico and Bing should be better because of their long experience in power than Maranon and Lacson.
The problem with them is themselves. They could not just live a life the way it should be, simple, beautiful and exciting. They seem to prefer or prone to a complicated life, or life with so much complications than simplications.
I think Monico and Bing are the ones that need most advise in character formation and governance, and how to live life the way nature nurtures itself.
If they just forget themselves, look around with open eyes and minds, they will just be deluged with helping arms who want them join hands, and most important, to the way of peace.