A Rama-Davide collaboration?

It's a good thing that Governor Hilario Davide III and Mayor Michael Rama have already met, although informally. Both used to work together at City Hall and I'm sure they are on talking terms. They belong to different political alignments, yes, but a typical Filipino - and both are so - is generally personalistic. A person, not a party, is likely to govern his behavior. That's why pakikisama or companionship is a strong determinant of how a Filipino reacts to the presence of another, assuming the fellow is imbued with good nature and good sense.

Good nature and good sense are not alien to both Rama and Davide. For more than a decade when I served as a DepEd director, I had had occasions to interact with Rama (then a councilor) and I found him genuinely friendly and supportive of what we were doing in the department. “Jun” Davide was perhaps still a student in the 1980's when I (as a school superintendent) used to visit Colawin National High School which was founded by his grand dad, retired superintendent Hilario Davide Sr. The old man was soft-spoken (like the governor) and age did not seem to slow him down because he was still pursuing a number of school related projects like the building of a concrete two-storey library and construction of a cluster of classrooms and laboratories. Environment was his obsession and he boosted DepEd's tree planting project with a steady supply of mahogany and “tugas” seedlings. “There are no barren soils, only barren minds,”  he would remind us.

Such drive to do good must have undoubtedly seeped into the blood stream of the new governor because it evidently did so in the person of his father, former Chief Justice Hilario Davide II.

Two good natured men in two major offices - what a blessing for Cebuanos! No more will Cebu's leadership landscape be polluted with accusations and insults. No more will ill-will and politics stand in the way of progress. “Ciudad” project? Lots for Apas settlers? Why not? Given a synchrony between Capitol and City Hall, there's nothing impossible.

Very urgent is a close collaboration between the city and provincial leaderships. Their turfs may be different, but they are serving the same ethnic groups - Cebuanos. And each of them has his feet figuratively in both places. Ask those who mind the stores in the city or those who man the factories. Are they not from the countryside? Ask those who are tilling the farms in rustic areas. Who buy their produce but the city folks? Vegetables and fruits, fish and poultry and pork, most stuff for the dinner table, in fact, come from provincial diaspora. Without these city people would starve, and rural folks too, because most of them source their sustenance from the city.

No city can exist without a steady supply of potable water, but the aquifers are in the municipalities, not in urban areas. Power too is the life-blood of city-based commerce and industry, but a great bulk of this is generated in the power plants outside this metropolis.

Tourism, a major aspect of the development initiative if both governments, can be boosted if collaboration exists. The city has its museums and shopping malls while the province its beaches and rivers and waterfalls. There's the Sinulog of the city and there's the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo Festival of the province. If these two events can be synchronized imagine the impact on foreign arrivals and balikbayans.

Infrastructure too, a vital component of tourism, can be improved and expanded through a tie-up between the two LGU's. For example, there's an ongoing four-lane south road development project of former congressman Eduardo R. Gullas. Completed, this will very much complement the city's BRT project, at least in the southern section.

More than projects, however, is the goodwill between the two leaders. With it there is no limit to what they can do to improve the quality of life of Cebuanos.