Alberca’s blunder in Pasigarbo sa Sugbo

This year’s Pasigarbo sa Sugbo, held in Carcar City, is controversial. It disappointed many people. There were so many glitches in the sound system, which affected the performance of many contingents. Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia is furious, and she has every reason to be.

What makes matters worse is that the owner of the sound system, Mr. Isidro Alberca, has yet to, so far, be able to offer a convincing explanation for the fiasco.

The core of Aberca’s reasoning was the last-minute changes in the sound system setup that the organizers wanted him to do.

This excuse readily collapses in the face of the fact that it is safe to assume that Alberca, having been in the business for years now, knows that, indeed, there are last-minute changes in any event. That’s unavoidable; for this reason, a reasonable person in business must prepare contingency measures.

He is trying to say that the changes, mainly the transfer of the equipment, must have been the cause of the fiasco. But how he did not explain.

Moreover, if the transfer of the equipment was difficult for him to do, did he immediately tell the provincial government about it? That way, the latter could have helped him. What prevented him from doing it? One could only surmise that he was paid not a meager amount of money for his service and that it would be embarrassing on his part to tap the resources of the Capitol. How accurate that his contract with the capitol for that particular event was costly, amounting to more than ?2 million?

Cebu Province is rich. It could have deployed its vast resources to help Alberca if, indeed, he thought that the transfer would be disastrous if he relied solely on his own resources.

This was proven during the Sinulog in Carmen, Cebu, this year. There was a time constraint in preparation for that event after the governor decided to hold the grandest Sinulog in Carmen.

But everything went smoothly simply because Carmen Mayor Carlo Villamor was honest enough to tell the governor of all the predicaments in holding the event. The province answered for all the prizes and sent heavy equipment to help in the preparation.

Last Sunday’s event, with the presence of Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and the senators, surely the governor cannot afford a single glitch in the event. She could have deployed the vast resources of the country's richest province if Alberca had informed her of the problem before the blunders.

She could have hired the brilliant technical people in the province to augment Alberca’s people. But Alberca was not transparent enough like Mayor Villamor.

Alberca can use all appeals to emotions, such as the makulban og caldero argument and that he has also been hurt. That the turn of events hurts him is probable. But let us not forget that just as hurt, if not more, are the hundreds of performers who gave their all for their long-awaited performance.

Alberca does not have a monopoly on pain. Countless Cebuanos, who watched in person or online, felt utterly disappointed, too.

No wonder Governor Gwendolyn Garcia was furious.

One question that lingers in the mind of the public is why there were too many glitches. And, as the governor wondered, those glitches occurred during presentations of big festivals. We can’t blame anyone for feeling that there’s something fishy with what went on, especially when during the presentation of the contingent from Carcar there was not a single technical glitch.

Alberca may be sorry, but he has not taken full responsibility yet, and his explanation opens a floodgate of questions.