A warning for all

His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña issued a stern warning against the critics of his multi-billion peso project which he has since called as the South Real Properties. He would not anymore want them to bring to the discussion table the fact that Cebu City has been burdened (and continues to be so) with hundreds of millions of pesos yearly to pay the loan for this otherwise white elephant. Obviously, he is angered by such incessant barrage leveled by his detractors like the city's getting bankrupt for this monumental error.

To drive his message home, our mayor minced no words in asking two congressmen and one governor, belonging to the powerful Garcia family, not to use the South Coastal Road on the SRP if they would continue mentioning the project in less favorable contexts. Actually, while hizzoner mentioned the three Garcias, who as, we know, hold government offices higher than his, his intention is to serve notice against everyone else for talking about the SRP. We can, thus, construe that if Mayor Osmeña pulled no punches in airing some kind of an action against the Garcias, then minor factotums should be especially wary.

For writing on this topic despite the all points bulletin issued by city hall, I, an obvious non-entity, may easily be mistaken for not heeding the mayor's warning. Believe me, I am not looking to challenge the almighty mayor's gag order. Conscious of that dire possibility of being bamboozled, I am contrained to speak my mind in the most cautious manner, lest the heavens fall on me.

Really, I am forced to touch this issue because for a number of years , Mayor Osmeña has been telling us something that, I feel, is beginning to be exposed as hogwash. He has boasted that several prospective buyers of the SRP have been lining up to buy portions of the city parcel. Since the year 2004, to use a time reference made by former Barangay Tinago Captain Joel Garganera, our mayor has excited us with the prospects of financial windfall arising from sales of valuable lots within the SRP. Indeed, it has been four years now, more or less, and the crow of the mayor has yet to materialize.

Rather than dramatic sales of choice lots in the reclaime land being concluded, the score is a big fat zero. Mayor Osmeña's humbug is, in any language, still an empty talk. I have been truly hoping for his success but, with the passing years, his assertions of being on the brink of concluding huge sales have but been unfounded claims.

A recent act of Mr. Joel Yu betrays the mayor. According to reports, Mr Yu, who heads a group funded by the city government with millions of pesos yearly, has asked the city council to pass an ordinance (or a resolution or back to an ordinance) that sets forth the guidelines on the city's entering into Joint Venture agreements with future investors. Mr. Yu has no legal personality to badger the city's elected councilors to do his bidding. Surely, he must be so marching upon direct instructions of the mayor.

A joint venture, even if we stretch its meaning to breaking point, does not result in a sale. Two parties, like for instance the city government and a private investor, in signing a joint venture, decide to undertake a project where the city allows the use of say an SRP lot while the investor puts up the structure and maybe the business in it. The city does not sell its land and the investor does not buy such piece of real estate.

By asking for guidelines on joint venture agreements, Mr. Yu makes Mayor Osmeña a liar. There is, after all, no truth to the mayor's boast that many businessmen have approached him to buy portions of the reclaimed land. Perhaps, they may have sounded off the idea of a joint venture, nothing more. So that the matter of Mayor Osmeña's not telling us the real score is not constantly discussed, he issued that warning. And for mentioning it here, I shake in fear.