EDITORIAL - Lost in translation

When Georgia Osmeña, who is seeking to replace her older brother Tomas Osmeña as mayor of Cebu City, appealed to the city government to prioritize the clearing and cleaning of esteros, rivers and other waterways, she meant it to be made a top priority policy of governance.

Apparently, the acting mayor, Vice Mayor Michael Rama, who is also running for mayor, did not understand the appeal of Georgia in that light. He thought Georgia was insinuating that the city never did any clearing and cleaning of waterways and proceeded to enumerate the times.

"She doesn't have to worry because we have the CMB (Coastal Management Board), which has done 16 coastal cleanup and 12 urban cleanup activities," Rama said triumphantly. He missed the point entirely, and the city's failure in this regard was inadvertently exposed.

Again, the point of Georgia is the prioritization of waterway cleanups as a matter of policy, meaning it should be done regularly and consistently, and therefore you do not count the times because doing it is a matter of course.

To count the times is to remember it as some "activity" that is probably just for show. "For the past few years, the Coastal Management Board has collected several tons of garbage during coastal and urban cleanup activities," Rama said. See?

One of those times was probably during the World Coastal Cleanup Day which happens once a year and draws participation from a variety of sectors, mostly students. The following day every newspaper in the world carries pictures of the activity. The day after that, the world forgets.

And that is why there has to be a consistent and regular effort, done daily, by any appointed body or agency of the city, to clean up all waterways. That was the point Georgia was trying to make, but which got hopelessly lost by the time it reached the desk of Rama.

Why? We do not profess to know why. But we can hazard a guess. Maybe Rama saw it as an attack by Georgia, considering that both are eyeing the same position next year, and he responded in a manner he deemed appropriate in case of an attack -- he became defensive.

What Rama failed to realize was that to have done only 12 or 16 cleanups in a city as big and important as Cebu City is to have done almost nothing. His was an indefensible position. Had he taken Georgia more positively, he could have won points by promising more if elected mayor.