The Facebook tit-for-tat between former Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmena and his successor, Mayor Michael Rama was overshadowed by a recent court ruling that should unlock the budget impasse over an unprecedented P2.8 billion supplemental budget.
Will the Osmeña bloc in the City Council finally admit it has run out of legal roadblocks?
With SM Seaside City opening today, and other commercial developments in the South Road Properties (SRP) taking shape, the public is generally excited about seeing the reclamation area finally blossom.
While investors in SM, Filinvest and Ayala are gungho about the prospects of the SRP, even setting aside corporate rivalry to undertake a joint venture just to win the public bidding , it strikes a discordant note indeed to see decisions of how to spend the real estate sales proceeds go back and forth, hinging on a political nose count of how how many belong to Team Rama (who are outnumbered) and Team Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) , who have enough members to block passage of a measure, but not enough to override a veto by the mayor in the City Council.
All these delays in a quarrel over the mode of disposing real estate.
They brought it to court, and the court has spoken.
Finally, with a court ruling, that says the Council’s resolution authorizing an SRP lot sale by public bidding is “valid”, we should let sober voices take over now.
Then comes Facebook.
Nasty allegations fly about online by people who may or may not be using their real names.
Osmeña’s own insinuations that the mayor’s thin, even gaunt physique, signals that he has “a serious drug problem” offers tantalizing assumptions to “connect the dots” but no hard proof is offered.
It brings to mind the black propaganda Osmeña had to endure in the 2013 election, when allies of Team Rama would spread word in pulong-pulong sessions that Tommy’s cancer of the urinary bladder wasn’t really cured, and that the BO-PK boss may not finish a full term for health reasons.
His less than usual weight was under scrutiny as well, and a medical certificate of a clean bill of health didn’t stop the attacks. Is this Osmeña’s way of delivering a comeuppance to Mayor Rama in his 2016 reelection bid?
Same mud, different platform – social media with all its power and flaws as a medium of shotgun comments fired with impunity.
The mayor’s reaction to refer all “critical” online comments to the city attorney’s office for possible legal action should remind all parties about the line between criticism and defamation. We know it’s a liberal space given for public officials, especially when emotions run high in a campaign.
So we urge the two frontliners who offer themselves to Cebu City as the fearless leader of the second largest metropolis in the country to take public discourse to a mature level.
It’s hard, we know, but they can sure try harder.