Also about...
[] The orders Mike didn't give at the CCMC site
[] The P.I.O. Mayor Nes must think he doesn't need
[] Beat reporters shouldn't be beaten up, not literally
WHO SHOWED UP at the Cebu City Hospital -- aka Cebu City Medical Center or CCMC -- Tuesday night when an earthquake struck Cebu with Bogo City as epicenter? No need to guess.
'Twas former mayor Michael "Mike" Rama.
Mayor Nestor Archival Sr. was there too, giving out orders on evacuating patients from the building.
Ex-mayor Mike wasn't issuing any order but some of his comments sounded like he was. Mayor Nes didn't mind, or appeared not to mind.
7 YEARS OR SO AGO. In October 2018, Nilo Igot, then the assistant city engineer, told news media the new CCMC would be stronger, being built to stand for at least 100 years.
It has a "deeply seated foundation," Igot said, that is 15 meters or about four stories high, which can survive an intensity 10 quake.
LAST TUESDAY, September 30, 2025, an earthquake -- Intensity 6.9 -- struck Cebu, leaving at least one dead, damaging ancient churches and other structures and knocking out electricity in parts of Central Visayas.
Next day, Wednesday morning, October 1, ex-mayor Mike proudly told a former colleague of his at City Hall that CCMC could withstand an intensity 8 quake.
SPECS CHANGED OR WHAT. Either the builders changed specifications for the CCMC structure or the ex-mayor scaled down his own expectations. Or he confused numbers.
The public needs to know, particularly for the prayer brigade that prays whenever an earthquake strikes, like "Kaloy-an mo Ginoo/ kay imo man gyud and pagbuot/ intensity below 8 lang/ wa pay sure ang 10."
***
CRISES LIKE THE SEPTEMBER 30 QUAKE showed how useful a publicist or P.I.O. could be.
Mayor Nes himself briefed the media. For that he had to seek out department heads and other persons who had the facts about the earthquake and City Hall response.
That's a lot of hassle. Which is the job of the publicist, to speak partly for the mayor and, before that, collect the facts and prepare the points that must be addressed.
What, and deprive the mayor the public exposure he needs and most likely wants? Not at all. The mayor can still have his PR moments but the heavy lifting can be shifted to the P.I.O.
***
PHYSICAL ATTACK ON REPORTERS. Cebu's beat reporters, through its umbrella organization CFBJ, has complained some of them were pushed and shoved or otherwise beaten up when they covered the arrival and installation of the new archbishop this week.
[] CCPC or Cebu Citizens-Press Council, in an aside when it commented on the "incident," said: "Beat reporters beaten up. Not funny."
[] Journalist-blogger Max Limpag, in a post, wrote: "To the Archdiocese of Cebu, it's Church beat reporters, not beat Church reporters.
***
WHERE HAVE THE PHOTOS GONE? Sometime ago, former Cebu City mayor Mike Rama complained at a press-con that the photo of his grandfather, Vicente Rama, had been removed from City Hall.
Vicente Rama, Mike's grandfather, was city mayor from 1938 to 1940, was an assemblyman/congressman, then senator. He was also "father of the city," having authored the law, the City Charter, that gave birth to the city.
I asked around and Atty. Chappy Piramide, secretary of the City Council, told me September 18, 2025, "All portraits of Don Vicente and the mayors of Cebu City, previously displayed at the lobby, mezzanine, and session hall of the legislative building have been transferred to the to the CCPL (Cebu City Public Library)."
There. And not just Don Vicente's but the whole gang that preceded the present mayor. Maybe at the library, clients, mostly students, could ponder on what those illustrious past mayors didn't do and could've done to manage City Hall more efficiently.