EDITORIAL - Problems define leaderships

An American named Jimmy Sieczka, who has taken up residence in Cebu, has come up with a video showing some of the things he does not like about Cebu. The video is now being shared in the social networking sites.

As expected, the video drew immediate reactions from Cebuanos, from private citizens to government officials. Some took the American’s complaints positively and viewed them as a challenge, others preferred to ignore the facts and chose to be haughty.

Mayor Michael Rama did the correct thing by saying the city government is now addressing the problems raised by Sieczka. But he went overboard by saying people might even be enticed to come and see for themselves the veracity of the American’s claims.

But just what are the things that so riled Sieczka? Among other things, he took umbrage at the piles of garbage on city streets, the hordes of child mendicants, the traffic gridlocks, and the constant and impatient honking by taxi drivers.

To these complaints, councilor Margot Osmeña took umbrage. Osmeña said Sieczka should go home to the United States if he does not like it here. That is an unfortunate reaction that does not solve the problem one way or the other.

Even if Sieczka takes Margot’s advice and goes home, he will still be leaving behind the problems he exposed, in all likelihood unsolved, because officials like Margot resent problems being pointed out.

Great leaders are happy to have problems pointed out because it gives them the opportunity to solve them. Poor leaders are those who daydream that life is all hunky-dory and get upset when told otherwise.

There was nothing in the Sieczka video that was not true, which is probably why Rama saw the futility of arguing against it. By rising up to the challenge, we now have a real chance to solve the problems which we know to exist, even without having somebody to point them out to us.