Why Davide is in the province? 2nd reason

Last Friday, I wrote in this corner, the first reason I perceived why political power wielders in our city arrayed the honorable former councilor Hilario Davide, III, against her Honor, Cebu Provincial Governor Gwendolyn F. Garcia. I said then that putting Davide as candidate versus Garcia was a handiwork of the Hon. Raul del Mar, congressman of Cebu City North district, for no other reason than to remove the councilor as a probable congressional aspirant for our district and to pave the way for his daughter.

In a news story few days ago, I realized that there could be as there probably was a second reason that compelled His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, to remove from his line up Hon. Davide and throw the latter into a more difficult campaign in the province. The city councilor must have shown to have a mind of his own that the mayor considered prudent to avoid clashing with. As we all know, the mayor rules the city as if nobody else knows how.

According to the papers, gubernatorial candidate Davide has included in his program, the improvement of the educational system. It is great for him to consider the matter of educating our youth, as among his priority concerns, if and when he gets elected to office. He is reported to be vocal about tapping the private sector to achieve this objective. This aspirant for the province's chief executive position, is aware that government is not in the position to give our youth everything necessary to advance their educational needs. The private sector is a necessary partner to realize his dream.

Conscious that Hon. Davide may be profound, let us try to approximate the depths of his mental frame. In so doing, we cannot evade considering a stark reality that his mind might have very well accepted. There is a dire need to provide adequate tertiary education. Unfortunately, it is an area where government, notwithstanding lucid constitutional principles, is ill equipped. The state universities and colleges, funded, of course, by national coffers, are few. They cannot accommodate the thousands of annual outputs of secondary education.

Some cities like Talisay and Mandaue, and municipalities like Cordova, in their earnest desire to fill the void of tertiary education, operate their own colleges. (By the way Cebu City has none). Even then, they, too are in capable of absorbing the number of high school graduates wanting to get college education.

In our midst are some of the best universities and colleges in the country. They are privately owned and operated. Great numbers of our youth, in search of college education, pass thru their portals and get diplomas. For several decades, these private schools provide educational opportunities which government has been unable to offer. Year in and year out, they churn out very well respective professionals. And yet, they receive no perceptible aid from the government.

Without being reckless nor becoming flamboyant, I dare predict that if we remove these schools or make their operations difficult, the educational system in our country might fall to an abyss we may not be able to recover from.

I like to believe that the news item that told us that Davide would tap the private sector on the matter of educating our youth, revealed his frame of mind. He must have accepted the fact, first and foremost, that the owners of private schools in our province are the best government partners in the area of education. These schools are truly the front liners on this issue of education and the way Davide spoke highly of them, showed that he would be the last person to prejudice their very existence.

Quite frankly, that plausible frame of Davide's mind, might have run smack against the mentality of Mayor Osmeña. The administration of Mayor Osmeña, as we witnessed recently, went in the direction that tended to show ingratitude to these private schools. We have read that the mayor asked for the passage of an ordinance that his robot of a council could not refuse. That ordinance imposed heavy tax burdens to private school owners.

I think that Mayor Osmeña saw this mentality of Davide. The mayor would not welcome an inquisitive mind in his rank and file. And because the councilor must have hinted on some independent reasoning, the chief had to sideline him as early as he could. That was when the idea of banishing him to the province under the cover of contesting the governorship came handy. What a revelation!