Thoughts on local politics

I came across a phrase yesterday that resonated with the direction we should be going after the hotly contested barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in Cebu City. It was from Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech to parliament, published in the Straits Times last Thursday.

Quoting his father Lee Kuan Yew’s version of an African proverb, the prime minister said: “When elephants fight, the grass suffers, but when elephants make love, the grass also suffers.”

Singapore’s prime minister was actually referring to the uncertainty that overshadows the relationship between the United States and China. He said that if the two powers tilt towards more conflict, it will be bad for them and the rest of the world.

But in the opposite, that is, if they connive to “divide up the world between them, and set rules that only benefit them,” Lee said, “that would be just as detrimental, especially for small countries which will have no say.”

In some ways, the elephant proverb might as well apply to the administration and opposition parties in Cebu City.

Ideally non-partisan, it cannot be denied that the recently-concluded barangay and SK elections were a proxy war between BOPK and Barug-Team Rama. That the results of village polls tilted heavily in favor of BOPK allies, should send a clear message to our local politicians: Poorly explained and politically motivated obstructionism has no place in local governance.

On the other hand, Cebu City residents have long been done with the days of a city council sharing the same bed with the executive. The absence of a system of check and balance has been proven bad for the kind of leaders our socio-political culture breed. Accountability, integrity, and efficiency are the values that usually suffer in the absence of worthy challengers.

Of course, each side has an explanation of the worth of what they have achieved at the city council and at the executive branch. But the election results made it clear that it was Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña who did a better job in explaining to the people his views and decisions on pressing issues the city is facing.

The election results, read together with the results of the recent Social Weather Station survey in Cebu City, also seem to have raised the political stock of former mayor Michael Rama over that of Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella as the leader of the opposition in the city.

Labella has largely been seen as a stand-in for Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino in the latter’s proxy war against Osmeña. That Rama (+32) is way more trusted than Dino (+9) in Cebu City, according to an SWS survey, only goes to show that Cebu City residents don’t give much weight to presidential alter egos like Dino, or to presidential statements like the one tagging Rama as a drug protector. Since when have we given up our right to judge for ourselves to national officials?

Dino cannot make the excuse that he is not a politician because from day one as supposedly the president’s assistant in the region, he has gone against the grain of the city’s duly elected leaders on crucial matters like traffic infrastructure and mass transport system, failing to give any convincing argument to these leaders and the people in favor of his counter-proposal.

The direction that we should be taking after the barangay and SK elections should be toward less destructive politicking and more constructive and candid collaboration for the development of Cebu City and its neighboring cities.

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If you have time today, please pass by and support the ladies of JCI Zugbuana in a fibers and flowers fashion show entitled ‘Fete dela Fleur’ featuring the hablon fashion line of Cebu’s leading fashion designer, Dexter Alazas, 7 p.m. at The Gallery of Ayala Center Cebu.

With its highlight on the largely community-based hablon fabric of Argao, the fashion show aims to tackle issues like community empowerment, support for environment-friendly products, and the revival of Cebu’s struggling hablon industry.

Allow me to congratulate JCI Zugbuana, a Cebu-based organization composed of Cebu’s young and admired lady movers from various fields --and oh, putting modesty aside, led this year by my sister May Joan M. Abellana.