CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is planning to print 23,400 leaflets to inform the beneficiaries of the City Hall medical assistance program that his political opponents want the delivery of free medicines to stop.
The mayor said he will explain to the beneficiaries through the leaflets that the opposition-dominated City Council is bent on deleting his P85 million budget for the hiring of job order employees to deliver the medicines and other supplies under his Long Life Medical Assistance Program.
"Right now, we're in the process of printing leaflets to the 23,000 and we're telling them that the City Council doesn't want you to get your medicines. We're making sumbong. They should know," he said.
Osmeña was reacting to the move of Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella asking the Department of Health to get the medicines it gave to the city government because these were distributed to the people without doctor's prescription.
Osmeña said Team Rama councilors do not want the free medicines to be delivered to beneficiaries.
"Labella and Joy Pesquera don't want you to get your medicines because you might vote for BOPK, dah. We'll make it, of course. We know how to fight. We have the network to reach 23,000 voters because we deliver the medicines everyday apil ang leaflet," Osmeña said.
Admitting it is part of politicking but the mayor said it is "good politics."
"Of course politics. It's good politics. People don't recognize there's such a banana as good politics. This is good politics because we're talking about service. Sure, that's politics. You're helping people. Bad politics is when they try to stop the services. Good politics is when you try to provide the services. And we're doing it efficiently," he added.
Contrary to Labella's claim, Osmeña said that the newly hired barangay health workers are not the ones delivering the free medicines. Osmeña said the city has hired at least 450 out-of-school youths since July through the Department of Social Welfare and Services.
"I intend to have the lowest mortality rate in the Philippines. And this is how we're going to do it. Because if all of our patients take their daily dose of medicines, there'll be less sickness in Cebu. Because many people who go to the emergency because they didn't take their maintenance, hypertension, diabetes. They do not follow the rules," he said.
"We're reinventing government. We're reinventing services to the barangay," he added. (FREEMAN)