EDITORIAL - Whose side is the opposition on?

The political opposition in the Cebu City council is correct in saying that any lawsuit the city might file against an investor, particularly at the city-owned South Road Properties which is trying hard to attract investors, may only achieve the opposite effect -- drive away potential investors.

Investors, as everyone knows, always desire a healthy climate within which to operate. In return they pour in capital that can work for the economy of the place they choose to situate. Once they feel the climate is not conducive to their operations, or others see it that way, then yes, it is goodbye.

What the political opposition in the city council forgets, however, is that the lawsuit the mayor is threatening to file against an investor, actually the city's own partner in a joint venture, has all of the city's interest at the heart of it.

In other words, if the threatened lawsuit is intended to protect the interests of the city, then the political opposition in the city council has no other choice and is duty-bound to support the position of the mayor.

That is, of course, unless the political opposition in the city council wants to be known as working for the interests of investors rather than for the interests of the city. And that is unless they are willing to face the ire of Cebuanos from whom they derived their mandate to protect their interests as well.

In a choice between the interests of a constituency and the interests of investors, elective city officials are expected to choose the former, regardless of their own personal convictions about an issue involving their constituency and investors.

The political opposition in the city council may not belong to the same side as the mayor. But that is only as far as their politics is concerned. When it boils down to their mandate, they still derive it from the people, whose interests must always prevail over that of investors.

It is not enough to argue that investors contribute to the well-being of the city because the well-being of the city derives from so much more, not just from investments. The people themselves pay taxes, and that should be sufficient basis enough for them to demand that their interests must be protected as well.