The suspension of Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama

The big news in Cebu over the weekend was the unexpected suspension of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama for a very flimsy reason… that he committed a grave abuse of authority for removing a cemented center island in Barangay Labangon by Barangay Captain Victor Buendia. Of course it is just a coincidence that Capt. Buendia belongs to the camp of former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña who is allied with Manuel “Mar” Roxas.

Call it also a coincidence that the challenger to Governor Hilario Davide III, former Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) General Manager Winston Garcia is all of the sudden now facing a graft case before the Office of the Ombudsman for that eCard deal the GSIS Board hatched with UnionBank 10 years ago???

So why was Mayor Rama suspended and why is Winston Garcia suddenly getting a 10-year-old issue resurrected out of the blue? It’s just a coincidence that they are facing LP candidates and believe me whoever has engineered this against Mayor Rama and Winston is going to backfire on their faces… and it would mean the loss of Cebu. If at all there was any grave abuse of authority and total indiscretion in suspending those who are running against the LP, it is the Office of the President and I dare say that there will be a day of reckoning after Pres. Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III exits from Malacañang. It is called “karma”!

Another big breaking news for Cebu came out in last Thursday’s news report in the Philippine STAR which was big news for the Tourism industry because the House committee on tourism held a very important hearing on the issue of the Department of Tourism  (DOT)’s “Star Rating” system, which we already wrote about in columns past is totally unnecessary for the simple reason that many nations have already dropped their own ratings system as these ratings are now being collated and published worldwide by Internet sites like Agoda, Expedia, Hotels.com and many other sites where you can find great hotel rates and deals all in the Internet.

Many of these hotel websites have become so popular because they do not only give you great hotel rates and deals, but they also give you their own ratings which they collated via direct feedback from satisfied or dissatisfied clients alike. So even if the DOT declares a particular hotel or resort as below their standards, clients don’t really care, as they would rather believe in the people who give a thumbs up or thumbs down to those hotels.

After reading that Philippine STAR report that the House committee on tourism sought for the suspension of the Star Rating of DOT, I immediately placed a call to Rep. Gwen F. Garcia who told me that it was Rep. Raul del Mar who proposed to suspend the Star Ratings system until the DOT comes up with clear and measurable and quantifiable ratings system.

I’m glad that our Cebuano legislators came out to stop this nonsense of the DOT because they have already downgraded the status of Plantation Bay from its original 5-Star rating down to 4-Star Rating. I saw the TV news on Plantation Bay owner Manny Gonzales and Mr. Tourism himself Mr. Robert “Bobby” Joseph of The National Association of Independent Travel Agencies Philippines (NAITAS) at that House committee hearing. So I texted Mr. Gonzales for his statement on the suspension of the DOT’s Star Rating and he emailed me his comments.

“Bobit, I was very gratified by the actions taken yesterday by our House Committee on Tourism, with the advocacy of Congresswoman Gwen Garcia and Raul del Mar and under the chairmanship of Congressman Rene Relampagos of Bohol. Finally, common sense and good judgment have prevailed over pretentious bureaucrats who have no understanding of international hotel standards yet arrogantly proclaimed that their star-rating program would solve our tourism industry’s problems.

Still, the question remains of what happened to the $7.1 million that Canada gave us to fund this program. Since Secretary Jimenez, Usec Jasmin, and all the DOT officers suddenly seem to have amnesia, we in Plantation Bay had to do our own research. We verified that $5.3 million of this grant went (or will go to) a private company in Australia. The DOT claim that they don’t know how the money was spent is simply not credible, like a bank teller saying that P1 million is missing but he has no idea where it went and don’t blame him.

Whatever legitimate role this Australian company might have had, it could not possibly be worth that much money. Even an outrageously expensive consultancy would come to no more than $100,000. That leaves $5.2 million, which in my opinion are “missing in action.” I hope that Congress and the law authorities of the Philippines, Canada, and Australia get to the bottom of this affair, which might involve bribery, kickbacks, the Philippine crime of Plunder, and international money-laundering…. Manny Gonzalez.” More of this story in future columns to come because it is far from over!

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