Tingog.com

The tormentor of my nightmares, and there have been quite a few as of late, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has finally yielded his stubborn and arrogant move with regards to the junking of Lahug projects including the construction of a 20 classroom building. As you may know, I have not yielded nor saved any harsh words for this mayor. When he announced that he would stop the construction of the 20 classroom school building all because his opponent for the Mayoral election this past May 14th, Barangay Captain Mary Ann de los Santos, accused Osmeña of not having provided projects for the barangay during his previous term.

Mr. Osmeña has shown his arrogance time and time again, even willing to sacrifice a school building for children in the name of politics.

But, for now, the Mayor has yielded and will resume the construction of the school building. No thanks to an ass kissing City Council and a Barangay Captain Association that were all too willing to support such arrogance coming from City Hall itself.

And even in his yielding, the arrogance can be felt in an almost sickening way. He said that it was all just a game, but don’t tell that to the kids who were outside protesting, don’t tell that to those who donated their hard earned money just to help out in the fund-raising for the school building.

How dare such a public servant act like a dictator in his own backyard, a public servant willing to play with the minds and hearts of the citizens that he is sworn to serve.

“I never intended to remove the funding for the Lahug school building because we don’t need the money to construct other school buildings. This is just my way of getting the attention of the Lahug residents. Only, I made it appear that I’m going to transfer the project to Talamban,” he told a news conference yesterday.

But because of public pressure, he said he could not “prolong the game”. “I wish I had the time to play games with Mary Ann, but I said, `Ah, let’s start the project na lang.’ I guess I already made my point that we gave projects to Lahug,” he said.

Let’s not forget that this was a ‘game’ that made citizens have to beg for the money. And when you have to make your own citizens have to beg, then shame on you Mr. Mayor, may God forgive you on this matter, because it will be long until I do.

I thank everyone for their concerns, there show of protest, and their show of care for their fellow brothers and sisters of Barangay Lahug. If there is a lesson to be had in all of this, is that we must not forget the action of our political leaders during their term in office, let’s keep a scorecard, and come election day, let us not forget the sins, and judge the candidate by merit and not campaign slogans.