“If you’re horrible to me, I’m going to write a song about it and you won’t like it. That’s how I operate.”
--Taylor Swift
NEITHER National Police Commission (Napolcom) nor Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña writes songs and even if they did, they don’t have an audience as vast as Taylor Swift’s, which makes her songs far-reaching and powerful.
Instead, Tomas and police just did what it had the power to do. Tomas said it would cut off the City’s aid to police. Police canceled Tomas’s authority over, and ties with, the police.
Stung by PNP Head Roland de la Rosa’s pull-out of the mayor’s police chief of choice, Tomas struck back with the decision to “withdraw all support” to the city police.
Tomas hasn’t totally done it: the police still keep and use city-given patrol cars, draw gas from city depot and have its utility bills paid by City Hall. But the mayor waved the sword and PNP Chief Bato hurled a rock.
Just as Tomas cut corners by making the unilateral move without approval or concurrence of the City Council, as it involved money and resources, Napolcom withdrew deputation:
-- Without following the law’s requirement, to consult the city’s two congressmen; and
-- Ignoring the consequence that would hurt the interest of city residents.
Rep. Raul del Mar, griping about the lapse in Napolcom’s process, notes that actually the City still picks up the police tab amounting to millions of pesos.
PNP Chief Bato apparently looked only at what came out of Tomas’s mouth, not what actually happened.
One-two punch
But then that’s what bullying is, although here it’s not a case of one “hurting, frightening or tyrannizing another who is smaller or weaker.”
It’s both doing where each could do harm to the other.
Tomas, used to getting Manila-based bureaucrats’ support, must have been stunned by the one-two punch thrown from the seat of power.
(paseares@gmail.com)