Editorial of the Bohol Chronicle
By Bingo P. Dejaresco III
Like his favorite boxers, the vocal City Mayor Dan Lim knows infighting - uppercuts and all.
Perhaps chastened and in fact strengthened by three major city poll debacles before getting to Mt. Olympus as new city mayor in 2004, Mayor Lim is a political survivor. In every sense of the word.
Remember how like a lone wolf in his first term, Lim charmed his way into the hearts of 9 City Kagawads with different political stripes from his and converted them into allies? Remember how Lim even wooed a political rival in Nuevas Montes to instead be his running mate in the 2007 polls?
Astute and tough as the pugilists he adores, Lim traded punches with erstwhile buddy Kagawad Djingo Rama and later with another ferocious political camp mate, former OIC Governor Victor de la Serna. The Mayor takes all comers.
He did one more political acrobatic trapeze swing by wresting control over the Sangguniang Panglungsod over the bloodied faces of two trusted lieutenants - Kagawad Edgardo Kapirig and businessman Mario Uy - by placing his bets on the "right" man. Lim sided with Uy.
By sundown, dark horse SK chairman of Dampas Rammy June Alturas won as SK representative - adding one more ally to Lim's army. Eleven of the sixteen elected city SK chairmen sided with the Mayor's Choice. By dawn, the mayor's other candidate of choice Faro Cabalit - representing the barangay got elected.
In a blink of an eye - including exaggeration - the sometimes pugnacious city mayor wrested control of the city legislature that makes laws and appropriates budgets for the city by a 7-5 majority.
Populists have decried the fact that SK and barangay chairmen who win on the basis of a limited constituency are given equal votes as the city-wide elected kagawads and therefore play an equal role in deciding the destiny of the city. Is that fair? But for now, that's how the cookie crumbles.
Within the bounds of law, Lim check mated ace rival Vice Mayor Toto Veloso who was then in Manila. In a stroke that straddled between Lim's political charisma and practical economics, all SP chairmen declared their chairmanships of committees vacant.
And if Mayor Lim had a target, it had to be the powerful Appropriations Committee once headed by Veloso. Of course, that slipped away from Veloso's hands into the Mayor's hands.
In politics, the only permanent thing is change. And change people have to live with.
More than ever, with City Hall being controlled by Lim on both fronts, the Veloso Opposition Camp to include the vice mayor, and Kagawads Mariquit Oppus, Bebin Inting, Djingo Rama, Lucio Balbin and Edi Borja, should exercise their role as genuine fiscalizers inside the house of power.
Outside that house, in the world of public opinion, they will find genuine allies (among city residents and media) if they make constructive exposes and well-thought of legislation, regardless of the Mayor's feelings. They have to do their homework if they wish to become an effective counter foil to a leadership that is known to be both vocal and tough. They cannot say "we cannot fight City Hall." They are part of City Hall.
However, with 2.5 years left, we have no room for destructive obstructionism - the case of objecting for its own sake - to the detriment of the public good. We are sure ill-tempered debates will merely improve their oratorical prowess and bombastic vocabulary, but the public won't buy that either.
Vice Mayor Veloso should lead this defense of public interest with sterling acts of statesmanship and objectivity which we demand of the Opposition in the aftermath of all these.
For Mayor Dan Lim and the Administration, don't be too cock sure and aggressive to be overbearing on the Minority and always remember that the public eye which will now be very watchful with "control of one party" in place.
Of course, we are for progress - the faster, the better – for certainly time is not on the side of any Third World country. We have a lot of catching up to do. This is the decade for doers, not the dreamers.
But excuse you us, not at the expense of transparency and whistle-clean transactions. Let us move towards progress together with clean hands. Let that legacy of "achievement with honesty" be the hallmark of this administration.
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