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DESPITE the chaotic ambience of Cagayan de Oro, many Cagayanons are still happy for the incumbent mayor who has declared he’s running again for the same seat next year.

If you’re not one of these happy people, then you may never be happy, for his fans do believe that he’s way better than the one he replaced.

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Night Cafe, anyone? Well, his non-fans can always react to that with, But Cagayanons are now drinking and making noise here, there, and everywhere, so, what’s the diff?
The diff, my friend, is the absence of the Night Cafe which was supposedly much much worse than the here-there-everywhere drinking that the city has to live with nowadays.

If only the incumbent mayor is as determined as the Davao City mayor in discouraging people from drinking 24/7, then this city’s drunken streets can be peaceful and quiet again, but before that can happen, we have to think of the old days when the Night Cafe lorded it over Divisoria which was closed to traffic on Friday and Saturday nights to give way for that cafe which sold more alcohol than coffee.

Traffic was then here, there, and everywhere even without the Night Cafe on the rest of the week, making me acquire this habit of texting a city councilor to please save me from more headaches as I wasted time waiting for cars to at least move an inch.

Same thing for the garbage then––here, there, everywhere––although there are Cagayanons who could rebut that now with complaints that the garbage situation has remained the same: uncollected, scattered all over, like an abandoned child.

Still, let’s give the incumbent mayor more chances to change the city from chaotic to non-chaotic. Three years are simply not enough but he has already built schools and roads, improved the city hospital, and has more plans that he wants to implement.

Aren’t you excited to learn about his future vision for the city?
There’s this chika though that the immediate past mayor may run next year, too. Well, this déjà vu will definitely make the 2016 election as exciting as the one in 2013.

If you miss the violet colors that used to beautify the city and the mayor’s office, then vote for the immediate past mayor for that’s obviously his favorite color. If you now prefer seeing the yellow flowers that make your Gaston Park photos look like you’re enjoying spring in the US, then vote for the incumbent mayor.

Choosing political candidates is not as easy as picking colors for the tiles of your house’s bathrooms, but for the confused voter who has been there, done that with elections, color may matter.

But I still do wear my violet clothes not due to political preferences but for practical purposes–the clothes are still in good condition, so why replace them? Meaning, you replace them only when they’re no longer in good condition. Which can be true also for politicians.

A politician is in good condition when he’s serving the public instead of his own pockets. When he listens to that public’s woes and fulfills his promises to them.

When he doesn’t paint the whole city with his favorite color and instead asks the citizenry what colors they do want to see.

When he can keep the city’s streets free from traffic, garbage, criminals, vendors, and the homeless.
One thing a Cagayanon notices when he’s in Davao and Puerto Princesa is their streets.

Makes him wish the same is true for his own hometown. If it’s possible for the two cities, why not for CDO? What’s our excuse? Let’s calculate the ways: lack of political will, lack of self-discipline, lack of obedience. One word: lack. Naay kulang.

Lucky is the Cagayanon who can avoid the city proper daily and has to squeeze himself into that chaos only once in a blue moon. He’s saving himself from more stress by simply doing that.

I don’t know if Cepalco employees have transferred to their new building uptown, but if they have and they happen to live uptown, then they’re the luckiest ones––they don’t have to go downtown anymore.

With SM right there, with gas stations mushrooming in the area like as if uptown cars are having a feast everyday, and with a coffee shop building a branch near SM, the uptown, uh, girl can stay there all her life unless she wants to see and be seen at the Lifestyle District.

SM has almost everything––restos, fast food outlets, supermarket, stores, bank, lotto, even counters where you can pay all your bills.

A friend who lives at Pueblo but works downtown still shops for groceries at SM because she said she has already memorized its aisles.

Grocery shopping can be stressful if you don’t know where to get a particular item. If your grocery list looks exactly the same every week, you’d rather be a robot on auto mode as you push that cart around the supermarket.

And if the wheels of that cart are not cooperating, uh, World War 3 alert!
Since the incumbent mayor is running next year, does that mean the incumbent District 2 representative is not running for mayor? Where will the latter go from here after his last term as congressman?
One thing for sure: District 2 will have a new congressman next year and his name is… Wait, he has not yet declared he’s running, unless he has and I somehow missed that breaking news.

But his candidacy is definitely sure na, as sure as the sun rising in the east every morning.

Well, it’s about time. We’ve been, hmmm, pressuring him to be congressman already for so many years. Pressure gyud? Hehe.

The pork barrel scam and plunder investigations have proven that politics is such a dirty world.

Let’s hope it’s harder now to steal from the national treasury and the politicians who have chosen to remain amidst these investigations are there only for one reason, and that is to serve the madlang pehpohl.

I mean, who still has the nerve to steal now with all these revelations? Ang kapal naman ng mukha nila if ever they’re still aiming to get their hands on the national treasury.

We can only wish that these politicians will realize we will all grow old in the end, and Vice Ganda has found the right words for this: “Balang araw, pare-parehas tayong tatanda, pare-parehas tayong mangungulubot, pare-parehas tayong maluluma, pare-parehas tayong mangunguluntoy, at pare-parehas tayong mamamatay, pare-parehas tayong maaaglas, pare-parehas tayong mabubulok, at magiging abo.

At ’pag naging abo na tayong lahat, balikan mong lahat ng lumait sa iyo, at sabihin, Anyare, bakit abo ka na rin?”
Well, that was in the “AdVice” segment of “Showtime” where Vice was giving advice to the young lady who was being bullied for her looks.

As for “maaaglas,” I hope I heard him right, since I’m Bisdak––Bisayang Dako.

In other words, my Tagalog is as chaotic as CDO.

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