Deals the mayor should benefit the city with

The office of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, was reported to have cancelled the Bitumen supply contract with Mr. Franklin Ong, immediately after the latter sent notice to the city that he could not anymore supply the city with the material. To recall, we read from the papers that Mr. Ong wrote to the mayor that when he won the bidding, the price of Bitumen was only P43,000 for a certain unit but, when he was supposed to deliver it, its price was already P47,000 for that same certain unit. The businessman wanted out because, presumably, he would suffer some loss.

 I wrote in this column that the act of Mr. Ong, whom I alluded to as the favorite businessman of the honorable Congressman Tomas Osmeña, tended to sabotage the road repair project of the city mayor and it prejudiced us the Cebuanos. I even tried to look into a possible angle that it was the former mayor’s idea that the businessman withheld the delivery of the Bitumen as a kind of political maneuver to portray the sitting mayor as a failure.

 A legal mind, actually a friend, who read my article entitled “Bad Politics!” sought to engage me in an exchange of ideas. His was more insightful. He opined that the mayor, rather than remand the purchase order, should have stuck to the provisions of the supply contract and demanded upon Mr. Ong, to do what was incumbent upon him, failing which the city should have heaped upon the businessman tons of legally actionable claims. To him, the act of the Mayor Rama was too kind-hearted. My lawyer friend meant to say that the mayor, in accommodating Mr. Ong, set a bad example, a dangerous precedent of some kind. Of course, this attorney pal of mine did not know that the office of the city mayor might have directed that Mr. Ong be blacklisted as a supplier.

 Contracts are supposed to be honored. Parties to a contract, like Mr. Ong, are bound to perform, in good faith, what are stipulated in the instrument such that even a change of price, normal in mercantile transaction, cannot become a reason to rescind it unilaterally. Allowing one to free himself from the terms of the contract, on his say so, would open the floodgates of similar future subterfuge.

 Indeed, another city supplier quickly followed Mr. Ong’s bad precedence. According the papers, a certain Gala Industries Corp., won a bid in 2009 yet, to supply the city with more than 7,000 chairs badly needed by our schools. But, it delivered only about half of its contractual obligation. This firm claimed that the city has not yet paid an earlier delivery! On this very flimsy excuse, it wanted to justify its failure to comply with the supply contract.

 I imagine that Mr. Ong and Gala must have acted upon the unpublicized order of some powers-that-be. It must be their scenario that the city mayor, believed to be docile, would, in panic upon the threat of non-supply of necessary materials, be unable to cope with the situation. They, most probably, did not anticipate that the mayor would cancel the Bitumen supply agreement and award the contract to another supplier. But the mayor called the bluff, which I think it was, and the scene drastically changed.

 Then, the good cop, bad cop, game came. The vice mayor, trying to project a wholesome image, dashed forward to play the role of a good cop. Despite the failure of Gala to deliver, he would not want the city to blacklist it. Instead, the vice mayor urged the mayor to give it a chance, capping his act with “we’re not happy about it, but what can we do?”.

 By professing helplessness, the vice mayor wants the mayor to accept that his (the vice mayor’s) ignorance of legal complications arising from contracts is, ironically, enough reason to let the supplier complete its delivery. Fortunately, the mayor is a lawyer and he can clearly see how legally flawed the vice mayor’s weird suggestion is.

I believe that the mayor considers the fact that these contracts of Mr. Ong and Gala, were executed at a time when he was not yet our city chief executive. He must have some profound insights into these transactions. With his legal training, he will find his way to make these deals work the city’s advantage.