Let SRP pay for a drainage system!

Two recent events caught the attention of the Cebuano tax-paying public. The first was a legal surplusage of an ordinance disallowing anyone to make any transaction over the South Reclamation Project. To comply with basic rules on ordinance making, it was aimed at anybody and everybody although I believe it was targeted at putting the mayor in a straight jacket. 

The second event revolved around the proposal of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama, to name the North Reclamation Area after its originator. The initial reaction, coming from the Hon. Cebu City South District Congressman, Tomas R. Osmeña, was understandably one of rejection. With that signal from the political boss, we expect sanggunian whose majority members are opposed to the mayor but aligned with the legislator, to belittle this measure.

True to the off tangent nature of this column, I veer my view from those events and recall two related bits of administrative history of our city.

In the early 60s, the Cebu City government undertook the reclamation of what is now known as the North Reclamation Area. I am told that the city took a track too good to be true. It did not spend for the project. The development was awarded to a private corporation on a scheme of sharing the area that could be reclaimed. Why did that company in turn contract another firm to do the actual work could not be explained by my informant. But, it helped facilitate the transactions that the city mayor then and the heads (the modern term is CEO) of the two other private corporations the city had to deal with were one and the same person. Oh, the religious amongst us could refer to the mayor cum CEO of corporation A, cum CEO of corporation B, as a form of trinity. Had it taken place today, some laws could have been breached.

Four decades after the reclamation project was completed, the city had another one. This is now known as the South Road Properties (SRP). To pursue it, the city did not follow the path of the first. Rather than award the project to a private corporation on a sharing scheme, it borrowed a multi-billion peso loan.

To be sure, we, the ordinary mortals amongst city residents, also pay that burdensome debt. Our taxes may be in small sums, but we contribute to the amortization payments. Unfortunately, we do not participate in the direct enjoyment of the reclaimed real estate simply because we cannot afford to buy even the smallest cuts in these sites. The less privileged Cebuanos, are thus left with the crumbs as indirect beneficiaries. Our relatives are employed as janitors in the shops at the NRA and maybe as sales girls when malls rise at the SRP. This realization pushes me to think that the reclamation projects were undertaken mainly for the benefit of the rich and the powerful at the expense of the middle class and the poor and the lowly.

If the Supreme Court described social justice as the equalization of the social and economic forces, then I hope our city leadership can think of a plan to make the SRP directly beneficial to the common tao.

One way is to make it pay for an efficient drainage system that protects Cebuanos from the unimaginable floods Metro Manila went thru last week. Let us do with without borrowing money. Within allowable legal frames, our city council has to slice a part of the SRP, with a size and location that command the kind of market price that is sufficient to pay for a new canal system. Then, it calls for bidders whose submissions must include a complete feasible plan of putting appropriate drainage. Thru competitive bidding, the city shall savor the position of being able to maximize the return of its land. Because the city uses the reclaimed land as consideration of the drainage project, it, in effect, returns to all Cebuanos, the direct benefit of having paid for the reclamation.

I like to think that there are learned professionals in our midst who, if tapped by our city leadership, are willing to lend their expertise to explore this proposal. The next move should come from either Team Rama or BOPK or, better still, from both.