Political survival or the needs of the poor?

There’s a group in Cebu called Mega Cebu, which is a conglomeration of civic society, the academe, students, professionals and Cebu’s political leadership in the local government units and Cebu’s Congressional leadership. The aim of the group is to come up with a better run Cebu, which is not tied to any plans of politicians, who when they exit from office, their plans are often no longer adopted and time and money is simply wasted. Mega Cebu’s Secretariat is The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI).

Last Friday, there was a very important meeting with Mega Cebu dubbed, “Convergence of Mega Cebu Leaders,” were civic society met Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, Cordova Mayor Ade Sitoy, Consolacion Mayor Teresa Alegado, Liloan Mayor Duke Frasco and Congressional leaders, led by North District Rep. Raul del Mar, South District Rep. Rodrigo Abellanosa, Rep. Luigi Quisumbing, Rep. Sam Sam Gullas and Rep. Red Durano.

The attendance of Cebu’s political leaders was crucial in this Mega meeting because of the importance of the message that RAF president Roberto Aboitiz was sending to the political leadership in Cebu because Mr. Bobby Aboitiz showed a powerpoint presentation highlighting the projects approved by the NEDA board for the entire country, which was emblazoned by a huge red “None For Cebu” sign across the screen. This is what Cebu has been getting for voting Pres. Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III into office and everyone was stunned that it has now taken four years under P-Noy where Cebu got nothing!

Another powerpoint presentation was presented to the audience, which was equally disturbing when Mega Cebu’s Engr. Fortunato Sanchez Jr. showed a tale of two cities; Cebu City and Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. It was an aerial or Google Earth view of both cities, which showed their vast network of roads and creeks or rivers.

Jun Sanchez pointed out that in Surabaya, their rivers had a constant width in its entire length, while in Cebu, we showed the Subangdaku River that separates Cebu City from Mandaue City, which was 50 meters across at its mouth near the Port of Cebu, but after the bridge, it reduces to 30 meters and further up stream it reduces to 5 meters. No wonder we get flooded!

The same thing is true at the Lahug Creek. Of course, the banks of these creeks and rivers are occupied by informal squatters who build their shanties with impunity because the local government officials and our elected officials do not have the political will to stop these potential voters from living along the riverbanks. Jun Sanchez also showed in that presentation that Cebu had only two surface water projects in the last 90 years, while Bohol had very large water impounding projects all done in just 13 years.

After these powerpoint presentations, Carol Go, who emceed the meeting told the audience that she was in near tears that nothing was done to improve the situation in Cebu. After Mayor Michael Rama and Governor Jun Jun Davide spoke up in response to that presentation, I spoke up and asked our political leaders… why were they still supporting the Aquino regime when it has not given Cebu anything in the last four years?

I questioned our political leadership, “What’s more important to you people… your political survival or the needs of Cebuanos? Of course, I didn’t name names and not all Cebuano politicians support P-Noy or come from the Liberal Party (LP). But while all our political leaders chose to remain silent, Governor Jun Jun Davide of LP was the only one who answered me, saying, “I’m only a year and a half in office. We’re not playing sip-sip here… we’re just doing our job.” He ended sounding very guilty.

But the unquestionable fact remains… since the departure of the Marcos dictatorship, Cebu always got infrastructure projects from all the Presidents from Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Only Pres. Aquino refuses to give Cebu anything and that’s all on the record of NEDA’s approved projects in the last four years.

Lucky for our politicians, their constituents haven’t heard of this because the ignorant masses that sell their votes in every election day have more important things to do… as they have to go about their daily lives because they are all stuck in that vicious cycle of poverty.

What little our politicians do for our poor people, like giving out free medical or health cards can help them in someway, but it doesn’t improve their present station in life and move them away from poverty. As French Revolutionist Maximillien Robespierre once said, “The secret of Freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of Tyranny is keeping them ignorant.” This is what our politicians today have done for the poor Filipinos and it won’t change until and unless we change our system of governance.

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