Critics of Mayor Jonas Cortes have faulted him for restoring the erstwhile closed streets in the City Hall-St. Joseph Church premises as a “demolition” of a skewed “cultural heritage”.
Lest the Mandaue folk be wrongly perceived for ignorance of what is “cultural heritage”, its definition is necessary. In a word, “culture” is synonymous to “civilization” and, is so encompassing to include society’s evolvement and development, or any activity to improve the mind, manners, values, skills, arts, education, lifestyle, customs and mores, religion, literature whether oral or written, history, etc. of a given people in a given period; or the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior of a community being observed by generations.
“Heritage” refers to a property, or the collective values, or the history, or a community trait or tradition that is inherited by succession, or culture handed down from generation to generation; that which is a legacy or birthright.
The previous administration makes capital of spending P2 M at first claim, and later of P11 M, for the then “mini-park” at the City Hall premises that, to quote their mouth piece, had been “restored” and “renovated” in 2004, but which was glowingly described as “cultural heritage” allegedly “demolished” lately.
Since time immemorial, the western end of Mabini Street converging with both lanes of the Cabahug Causeway fronting the St. Joseph Church – now National Shrine – had been openly unimpeded to church patrons, pedestrians and motor vehicles. Originally there was no mini-park, save for the manicured greens of the street isle and that beside the tennis courts, and so, it being “restored” or “renovated” isn’t true historically. Granting that it had some aesthetic value, nonetheless, its negative effects far outweigh it, as egress and ingress to the Church and City Hall premises were cut off.
The question is: Where was the “cultural heritage” supposedly restored and renovated? The real “cultural heritage” sacrificed by the closure of the two streets for the mini-park were: 1) the Justice Sotero B. Cabahug Memorial shrine with his elegant statue as symbol of Mandaue’s cultural heritage was sadistically uprooted and exiled to an obscure corner where drunken persons piss to empty their bladders; 2) the Rizal-Bonifacio Stage cum library where stage dramas, literary-musical programs, public meetings, and other cultural shows used to be held, was also made inutile with the closure of one lane of the Cabahug Causeway; 3) the popular meeting place of Mandauehanons that was once the Mandaue Plaza House flattened down wastefully; and 4) the public tennis courts converted into an unpaved parking lot.
Those were the infrastructures and “cultural heritage” that were destroyed by a poor excuse of a mini-park that involved multi-millions from Mandaue’s coffers: P4 million in March 2003 for the City Hall garden cum fountain; P11.5 M in August 2003 for park lamps in the city garden and plaza – precursors of the over-priced lampposts of the ASEAN summit? – and the P11 M for the mini-park in 2004.
In short, with the restoration to sanity of the City Hall and Church premises to the greater use of the public, definitely no cultural heritage was violated or destroyed. It’s paradoxical that the Mayor has been hied to the Ombudsman to justify for answering the clamor of constituents.
It’s doubly paradoxical that despite the various discovered questionable transactions, the crusade for the involved parties to account for them, have not even started. The first 100 days have just expired, and still, not one has been made to account fully for the anomalous unliquidated cash advances (UCA), over-expenses, the stupendous “midnight” P18.2 M purchases from the special education fund (SEF), the disastrous loss of the City abattoir equipment, the anomalous state of affairs of the half-baked Mandaue City College (MCC), continuing fiscal and personnel records hedging, and a lot more.
As sidelight, to the question of someone how the first 100 days fared on the accountability crusade, one opts to pass the buck: Next question, please…
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Email: lparadiangjr@yahoo.com