EDITORIAL - Cebu must be preserved, not broken up

In a world where borders are vanishing, the name of the game is consolidation. Companies are merging in order to survive in a highly competitive world. If you are small, you get shoved aside. This is true wherever you look, whether among individuals, companies, or even countries.

That is why it is consternating for anyone to suggest, against the grain of this global reality, that it is to the best interest of Cebu and the Cebuanos for the premier province as they have known it for more than four hundred years, to be broken up into four smaller pieces.

Who are Simeon Kintanar, Antonio Yapha and Clavel Martinez to destroy a heritage that is written both in the bedrock of this land and in the veins of all those who walked upon it through time and toiled with all their nerve and sinew to make it what it is today?

Mere motes that perchance teetered briefly on the eyelid of history, how dare these three supposedly honorable members of Congress to arrogate unto themselves the task of rewriting an entire people's very essence?

Kintanar, Yapha and Martinez may be kings in their own turfs, and for that they should thank Cebu and the Cebuanos for the opportunity to have had their fling with destiny. But Cebu is much more significant than the mere piece of political real estate they think they can carve up.

Rather than move for the disintegration of Cebu, Kintanar, Yapha and Martinez ought to move instead for a law that will permanently ban any future attempt to tamper with the integrity of Cebu as we and the world know it.

For in case they have missed it, Cebu occupies a most unique place in the history of our country and of the world. There is no account of the Philippines that does not include Cebu in it. It was Cebu that first placed the Philippines on the world map.

Other provinces, no doubt, have their own place and stake in Philippine history, some also grand and interesting. But none can eclipse the significance of Cebu in that history. To break up Cebu is, therefore, sacrilege. It is treason. It is a crime.