EDITORIAL - SRP ideal for fire dept relocation

The reluctance (other reports used the word refusal) of the fire department to heed the advice of Mayor Michael Rama and move to another location away from the Cebu City Hospital is understandable.

For one, change is not something people take too easily. Resistance is often an automatic response to change. For another, the fire department may not have the funds and other assets to make relocation possible, at least not in the three months Rama is envisioning.

But the position of Rama is understandable as well. The area where the fire department is presently located is no longer ideal for the kind of job any fire department is tasked to do. The place has become simply too congested for any practical purpose for a fire department.

The move to the South Road Properties or SRP as proposed by Rama is good for all concerned, if only the fire department considers it with an open mind. There are wide open spaces at the SRP. A move now will mean the fire department can control its chosen setup.

At its present site there is no room for expansion or improvement, even granting the fire department has the wherewithal to do so. On the contrary, judging by how things are going, it is inevitable for the fire department to someday be forced to relocate.

So beneficial and practical is a transfer to SRP to be made now that it is incredible why the fire department would even hesitate and not take up the challenge promptly. The only reason there might be for the hesitation is if the ugly hand of politics has gotten into even this pie.

The ugly hand of politics may be inferred if it can be proven that the reluctance of the fire department to relocate is the result of some interference by those who would love nothing than to see any move by Rama fail.

Any suspicion along this line becomes even more compelling in light of the fact that some of Rama’s known political enemies have taken to arrogating the SRP as their own, as if they have a personal birthright to what is otherwise a very clear public property owned by all Cebuanos.