Shortly after His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña came back home from his hospitalization in the United States of America, he surprised most of us by his plunging to work on the very first day here. Huh, talk of leadership by example where indolence was an unknown commodity. If the adage “do not wait for the morrow what you can do today” were a forgotten thing, surely our mayor showed how to practice it. We were, thus, entertained with the spectacle of a hard working mayor. There were probably a lot of things he wanted to address without a day’s delay including among other matters, the towing service and Tinago Barangay Kagawad Joel Garganera.
Yet, truth to tell, not a few of us were concerned with his health. I would not wonder if others were extremely solicitous. The mayor should just have gradually immersed himself in the city affairs. We silently wished he took a little more time before reporting for duty. After all, he just came out from a bout with cancer such that he needed to recover fully before taking his tasks dutifully. That concern, written on the foreheads of friends and supporters alike, had some foundation when the mayor himself admitted that he was still weak.That Mayor Osmeña did not have to adjust to different time zones, jet lag to many travelers, was, considering his condition, a marvel. Others derived form the mayor’s insistence to work a potent argument demonstrating that he was, indeed, cancer free. Still others claimed that our mayor was no ordinary mortal!
But, while we were straining our necks to see how busy he could be in attending to the functions of being mayor, we were told, quite nonchalantly, that he was taking a rest. So, he did not report to work. And his office did not make fuzz about his absence. City hall was laconic maybe to show that he should not be disturbed while at rest. And we took the advisory. We raised no questions. Of course, the nosy among us were kept guessing where was the mayor enjoying his privacy and with whom. To them, it did not help that the announcement of his having gone for a rest was littered with absent factual data.
What ambience prevailed where our mayor was? I, for one, thought that he got himself billeted in the presidential suite of a five star hotel. Soft music filled the air and persons inside the room had to whisper to communicate. I imagined someone putting a “do not disturb” sign on the entrance of his room. Even the room service people had to leave the food cart by the door.
Then, came the news from someone in the provincial capitol. Atty. Sepulveda, bared the information that Mayor Osmeña was not anywhere near the place I thought he would be taking a rest. Our mayor might not be resting at all. The officials at city hall did not tell the full story. Were they narrating half-truths? That I could not say.
Atty. Sepulveda, claimed that a friend of his saw our mayor in Camiguin island. Mayor Osmeña was accompanied by a businessman whose company recently concluded a multi-billion peso transaction with Cebu City. From that initial bit of news, came a horde of disturbing facts.
According to a reaction by Mayor Osmeña, he and Mr. Gotianun, of Filinvest Land Inc., went to greet personally Congressman Romualdo in the latter’s wedding anniversary celebration. He did not talk to the congressman about the Cebu City-Filinvest Land deal.
I believe the mayor. It did not matter that city hall tried to hide the fact of the mayor’s seeing Rep. Romualdo. If city hall officials lied on the whereabouts of the mayor, it was what many people call as a white lie. It did not necessarily follow that because the Camiguin congressman sits on the chair of the Congressional Committee that shall investigate the Cebu City-FLI land deal, Mayor Osmeña sought to talk to him about it. It certainly did not follow that because FLI had an interest to protect in that investigation, Mr. Gotianun had to travel with our mayor to meet with Congressman Romualdo.
* * *
Email: avenpiramide@yahoo.com.ph