It was intriguing for newly elected mayor, Nestor Archival, to not be in the room when the outgoing City Council made a last-minute dash to approve the City Land Use Plan (Clup) and Zoning Ordinance (ZO). It was like he did not want to be seen as opposed to the vendors’ negative stand on these issues so he chose to be absent. It came as a big put down for the vendors when later interviewed he admitted to agreeing with the Clup and ZO as they are needed in the city’s future development.
They are indeed. But one would think he would want to be remembered for a Clup and a ZO that were products of a wide consultation with affected sectors during his term. True, the Clup was 10 years overdue, but that takes nothing away from the fact it was done without proper consultation. Vendors had good reason to suspect the outgoing council’s last-minute rush to pass both plans was meant to drive the final nail into Carbon’s coffin.
As if that was not intriguing enough, Vice Mayor Tom Osmeña admitted publicly that Archival has betrayed the vendors even as he, BOPK top dog, affirmed his support for their cause. His explanation that “democracy is difference not unity” served only to raise doubt as to who would be calling the shots in City Hall. Bimbo Fernandez, a known BOPK and Osmeña loyalist, might have seen something so unbearably ugly in this weird political drama that he resigned from Osmeña’s transition team.
There has to be some kind of double talk here. The vice mayor alleging BOPK, the party he leads, has betrayed the vendors yet vehemently claiming his full support of them. No matter how I process these developments, I am led to conclude all bets are off on how the new mayor and vice mayor will move on the Carbon market issue. I cannot find Carbon in the three-year plan Mayor Archival has recently revealed. And true, Vice Mayor Osmeña was emphatic in his promise at the first session of the new City Council that he would scrap the City’s Joint Venture Agreement with Megawide. But that has to be taken as a politician’s promise that remains to be seen.
(And what are they sullying (without proof?) the reputation of the former administration for? They have already won, why waste time throwing more dirt on the defeated? Why don’t they, like Vico Sotto did so admirably well in Pasig, just move on with their program of honest service-oriented governance?)
Vendors must rely less on politicians and more on their unity and the justness of their cause. They are right to clean up Carbon, put it in order and act like they own the place because in fact they do.
The buying public would also do well to actively support the vendors. Without them there is no Carbon, not anyway the Carbon that served the general public with affordable basic goods and necessities. The rich have enough malls to choose from. There is only one Carbon for small folks.
For their part, Archival and Osmeña must back their stand on the Carbon issue with affirmative action. As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.