EDITORIAL – Let us not make Cebu a garrison state for the summit

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is offering each Cebu town financial assistance in the amount of P10, 000 if it can keep its residents home and not troop to Cebu City for the four-day holiday the president declared in connection with the Asean Summit in December.

To Osmeña, the less people there are in Cebu City on those days, from December 11 to 14, the lesser the security nightmare considering that the heads of state of all the Asean member countries will be here.

The idea, of course, is not feasible, not even if Osmeña ups the ante to a million pesos per town. For unless local officials are granted extraordinary powers to detain people, there is really no restricting freedom of movement in a democracy like ours.

To be sure, we admire the importance Mayor Osmeña has given the security aspect of the historic gathering in Cebu. But perhaps he should also be reminded that the Asean is not merely a regional grouping for political purposes.

There are other aspects of the association that involve culture, science, education, etc. And if these other aspects are to be advanced, even if only in the sidelines of the summit, then it is ridiculous to hold the meeting in a place devoid of people.

Instead of seizing the very rare and distinct opportunity that Cebu has been granted to showcase itself as worthy of the honor bestowed on it as host of an Asean summit, how funny if the delegates and dignitaries find themselves descending on a ghost town.

The true measure of a successful hosting of a summit is to be able to secure the place and the participants while allowing life to go on as normally as possible. Converting the venue into a garrison state will make us go down in history in a drastically different way.

Besides, the money Osmeña intends to entice towns in Cebu to keep their residents away from the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapulapu comes from the hard-earned money of taxpayers and should be spent for a far better purpose that keeping people away from the summit.

If indeed Cebu City is awash with money and is willing to spend so much to secure the summit, a much better way to do it is to spend for better training and equipment for security forces. There is still time to do this. The summit is still a good eight months away.