Labella shrugs off Osmeña’s criticisms, says he’s open to suggestions

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella | PIO Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella has shrugged off the open letter of former mayor, Tomas Osmeña, who has written to the Cebuanos criticizing the abolition of the long-life program.

“That is his opinion. Mao man na iyang opinion,” said Labella.

Read more: Tom O: How to handle Cebu City’s COVID crisis

The long-life program was established in the term of Osmeña as a systematic way of distributing maintenance medicine to the homes of the resident-beneficiaries through the barangays.

The program hired 800 volunteers paid P100 per day to distribute the medicine and vitamins to the beneficiaries. This was later abolished by Labella, who instead hired health care workers to manage the distribution of medicine in the barangays.

For Osmeña, the project could have helped boost the immune system of the residents and could even be adopted for the distribution of aid to the affected residents of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Labella has shrugged off Osmeña’s criticism, and he said that the former mayor could air his opinions and suggest solutions as this was his right.

Still, the mayor said he was not closing his doors to the suggestions of Osmeña, as every suggestion or solution was welcome by the city government amid these trying times.

Should the system be adopted, the mayor said that medical personnel must be tasked to do the distribution as they had been trained to handle patients and medications.

“For as long as those who will deliver are medical personnel, who are trained, who are technically competent, it is alright. As long as they are medically-trained personnel,” said the Mayor Labella./dbs