EDITORIAL - All wrong

Mayor Tomas Osmeña is going berserk. Because of his quarrel with Governor Gwen Garcia, he is now asking the city council to come up with an ordinance that will ban the provincial government from developing, for commercial purposes, all Capitol-owned lots found in the city.

That is an illegal act. City councilors cannot and must not bow to the dictates of Osmeña just because they owe their political fortunes to him. Laws are for general application, for the good of everybody. They cannot be made to target a specific entity.

Osmeña can ask the council to craft an ordinance making it unlawful for anyone to send nasty text messages to anybody else. But he cannot ask legislators to pass an ordinance banning Jonah John Rodriguez from sending nasty text message to Margot.

Osmeña can quarrel with Garcia all he wants. But it should be within the ambit of the law. And it should be within the parameters of what civilized society is willing to accept as fair and in good taste.

Osmeña prides himself as being one of the great leaders of Cebu. But what kind of leadership is he exhibiting to the rest of the world? What kind of image is he presenting of the Cebuano if, by his own example, all Cebuanos can only end up embarrassed?

We do not need to go into the details of his barricading the Basilica del Santo Niño or kicking out vendors whose only fault is to be natives of a neighboring city whose officials he hates.

But all these things are eclipsing all the good things that surely he must have done. Oh sure, Osmeña will likely say he is not running in a popularity contest so he does not care what people think and say of his leadership. That may be right but only up to a point.

Osmeña may only think that he is right. But that is not an assurance that he in fact is right. He could be wrong. And when he is wrong, it is not only he who will suffer but also those for whom he acted in a manner that he believed was right.

Therefore, no matter how highly he thinks of his intelligence and leadership qualities, Osmeña needs to factor in the possibility of his being wrong. And he is wrong on this one, and in so many other issues. Unfortunately, there is no one around him who can tell him that.