A city stressed by vindictive trapos

Manny Valdehuesa

CONCERNED  citizens, especially professionals like Dr. Merle Adaza, will probably agree that it is wrong for a few ambitious traditional politicians (trapos) to cause stress to a community and afflict everyone for partisan purposes.

For instance, why should a few recalcitrant partisans at City Hall hijack the budget of Cagayan de Oro in a determined bid to sabotage the administration?

In their desire to sink the administration, they let the city suffer uncollected garbage, choke its traffic, and cause a myriad of inconveniences by blocking the approval of its budget.

Clearly, the so-called majority in the City Council is being petty, obscurantist, and a nit-picker. And clearly their behavior is driven by vindictiveness and resentment at the behest of their trapo leader who cannot get over the fact that he lost in the last election.

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Sabotage, mayhem, and petty politics are writ large in the faces and acts of these councilors. They are now a liability to our city, individually and collectively, and it is a great shame that this should be so.

It is in the nature of democracy that one side may lose an election and be replaced in accordance with the will of the electorate.

And when that happens, it is expected that the losing side continue to serve the constituency and be loyal to it by ensuring that the basic functions and services of the incumbent administration are operative.

This is why opponents who lose an election in advanced democracies are referred to as the “loyal opposition.” They serve the needs of the citizenry regardless of their loss, and see to the effective and efficient performance of public services.

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But instead of being CDO’s loyal opposition, the Councilors have proved to be immature representatives of Cagayanos to whom they owe their loyalty.

They’re supposed to represent the people and see to the constant delivery of public services. Instead, they are saboteurs. A sad spectacle.

It is all the more sad for the fact that they are led by an immature vice mayor who owes his job to the defeated mayor and who seems to deem his loyalty as owed to the former and not to the citizenry.

Equally appalling is the unquestioned support of the other so-called councilors for him; councilors who have proved just as mawkishly loyal and blind to the shortcomings of the defeated one.

It would be a great tragedy for our city to even think of re-electing this bunch, not to mention re-installing the defeated trapo to the mayor’s office—which he seems to consider as his birthright

(Author of books on governance, he is national chairman/convenor of Gising Barangay Movement Inc.  valdehuesa@gmail.com)