Deadly game as simile/metaphor
CEBU City Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña Friday, July 3, 2026, compared the risk of being killed by flooding from Monterrazas de Cebu, a 19-story condominium of the Mont Property Group, to the risk of playing Russian roulette.
In Russian roulette, the participant spins the cylinder of revolver filled with only one bullet, points it to his head, and pulls the trigger. The simile also serves as metaphor for “reckless, life-threatening behavior.”
VM Tomas is known to love guns. Once (in August 2008) the then mayor reportedly and allegedly “brandished a firearm” during a labor strike on a store, presenting an image of a chief executive not unwilling to have a shoot-out.
That may explain the current Russian roulette comparison.
Flaws in ‘RR’ comparison
Is allowing Monterrazas to operate comparable to pressing the muzzle of a gun to one’s head.
Cebu City’s councilors don’t dispute the threat but, actually and practically, not stopping the work at Monterrazas cannot be close to trying to kill oneself with a single-bullet-loaded gun.
Obviously an exaggeration, a hyperbole of sort: magnifying the danger to push the Osmeña-desired response from the city government.
Even if it were like the deadly game, there could be no force in the city government that could or would place it in such a lethal situation.
Chances of the gun firing: ‘small’
One in six, VM Tomas said Friday before the City Council, 18% or 18.5%. (Another source gave a slightly lower number, 16.6%). Assuming it’s a standard revolver with six chambers, with one bullet loaded.
Gun experts/lovers like Ed Rama tell us the exact math changes, “depending on how the game is played.” Whether with a re-spin or without, whether the cylinder is spun before every single pull or only once at the start and the gun is passed.
There’s also the matter of the risk changing from the first player to the sixth: 16.6% for player 1; 25% for player 3; 50% for player 5; and 100% for player 6.
Let’s just leave VM Osmeña’s simile/metaphor to its intended meaning: the imminence of the danger, no matter how small. Apparently, not the clear and present danger rule.
‘You’re not 18% dead,’ Tomas says
Despite the implied allusion to an unrequited lover suffering “a thousand deaths,” there is only one death for each flood victim. VM Tomas says one who drowns in the flood cannot be “18% dead.”
No partial dying, which no one in the City Council could dispute. You’re survivor or fatality.
Monterrazas earlier partly cleared
Was the hillside developer responsible for the at-least-33 deaths during the November 5, 2025 flood in Cebu City?
Monterrazas was not solely to blame, said government regulators last April, or less than six months after the deadly November floods.
It was not the only culprit, said the regulators then in lifting the cease-and-desist order against Monterrazas.
The timeline:
[] Finding and measures just after the flooding: “Massive violations” by Monterrazas, including cutting of 700 trees. Breach of conditions of its ECC. Project stopped. Ordered the condo developer to pay financial penalties.
[] City Council’s action, February 2026: Cebu City legislature flagged additional violations, such as absence of permits for tree-cutting and hauling and soil excavation.
[] Clearance: In April 2026, Monterrazas was cleared by Environmental Management Board (EMB) and City Council, officially lifting cease-and-desist orders. Its conclusion: Monterrazas was not the sole cause of the flooding, EMB and the Sanggunian ruled, citing extreme rainfall and drainage limitations.
After C&D lifting, they want it back?
On motion of VM Tomas, the City Council voted Friday to ask Mayor Nestor Archival to issue a cease-and-desist order against Monterrazas or, more accurately, restore the previously-lifted order against the hillside development.
Mayor may reject, or pass on, plea
Mayor Archival -- who has publicly defended Monterrazas by affirming its claimed compliance with government-imposed anti-flood measures – can ignore the request.
If the mayor would take Monterraza’s side, Tomas and some councilors are likely to lament and criticize.
When Mayor Nestor was minority floor-leader of the City Council, he would bewail several instances of inaction by the mayor then on the legislature’s hundreds of requests contained in resolution every legislative year. One councilor or another who voted for, or didn’t object, to any such resolution would say, “Nothing wrong with asking. Hangyo ra bitaw.”
The mayor could grant the City Council request. Or refuse, repeating his public stand. Or have some higher authority -- like DILG or Office of the President -- or the courts resolve the quarrel on policy.
If disaster would strike again…
That’s the 18%, or 16%, Russian roulette chance that VM Osmeña talks about. If the flood would cause multiple losses of lives and heavy destruction of property, the mayor would be blamed. Blood in his hands, so to speak.
The City Council, at Osmeña’s prodding, is now displaying good optics. A safe posture in case what happened last November, or worse, would happen again.