Mike Rama and making of a livable Cebu

I should have titled this “The Politics of Informal Settlement.” But that is too narrow to work out a thesis on what Cebu City should expect in the second term of Mayor Michael Rama. Still, it is tempting to delve into the decision of the mayor to clean up the fire-ravaged section of Ermita while Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young would rather that the affected informal settlers (a much kinder term to squatters), were given a chance to go back and rebuild in whatever way they could, no matter the resulting squalor, the absence of sanitary facilities, the dreadful life amid the drug trade. In short, the sad informality of life and its unpredictability in a dog-eat-dog world.

When Mayor Mike started widening the narrow streets of the old Spanish quarter and the reclamation area in Cebu every time fire razed sections there, I saw political will triumph over narrow political interests (read: votes). It was very brave of the mayor to raze a large swath of houses of potential voters who could ruin his bid for a second term. Once, I saw him inaugurating the F. Villa street, now widened into two lanes just across Museo Sugbo in the Tejero district. I said to myself, the mayor just lost a large chunk of the votes of Tejero.

Some months later, another fire struck a section of another informal settlement across the street from the Cebu City Health Office. This time the mayor opened a road right at the center of it all to allow fire trucks to enter next time a fire would strike the place. Again, I told myself, the mayor just lost some votes here. The week or two before the elections, he did the same to Bato, Ermita, seemingly unmindful of the consequences of lost votes and the ire of many residents who had just suffered dreadful fire only to be told not to return to their favored spot amid the squalor—not just yet as the city government needs to reblock the whole area and establish a sense of order and dignity.

On my Facebook page where a photo of the cleared area, posted by my friend, lawyer Harve Abella, I could not help but admire the mayor’s tenacity and sheer hard-headedness, for want of a term. Brazen, to say the least, to clear a swathe of potential voters on the eve of elections.Thankfully, political will has triumphed over narrow political interest. Mayor Mike may have lost the votes of squatters, but he won the accolade of those who see that the only way for the city to thrive is to make this city liveable not just for informal settlers but for everyone else, voter or not.

I believe Mayor Mike learned a few tips from his erstwhile mentor, Tomas Osmeña, whose first three terms were marked by the widening of many streets in Cebu, despite opposition from the rich and poor alike whose properties stood in the way. I saw a visionary then who saw what Cebu City needed to be at the center of the country’s economic progress. Those first terms of Mayor Tom were heydays for Cebu, when everyone else turned their eyes to the massive public infrastructure that was unfolding in the metropolis poised for investments pouring in by the thousands.

And then all that ceased when the South Reclamation Project (SRP) emerged. There was nothing that concerned Osmeña more than the SRP. The city barely had any beauty to it, as if left to rot in squalor while a new one would rise at the SRP.

Now with Mayor Mike at the helm, are we seeing a renaissance of the old city? Is Mayor Mike prepared to invest once again in sprucing up the old Cebu City and place her in league with, say, Penang, the Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) world heritage city of Malaysia? There are many things Cebu shares with Penang, by the way. Both are cities built by colonial masters but which were thriving in the ceramic and gold trade even before the West claimed them. Both are centers of economic development: Penang in unrivalled information technology, Cebu in business process outsourcing. And both still retain the old charm of colonial structures although Penang has a functioning conservation program while Cebu City still has to institute one.

Still, as I keep on repeating, Mayor Mike has cleaned up the blocks surrounding city hall, urging owners to use colonial paints (not pink, by the way) of ivory, beige and white to allow the structures to relate to each other. If Mayor Mike persists and does not allow any concern about lost votes to hamper him as he cleans up the city and instills order and discipline even among informal settlers, then we are well on the way to a more liveable city. The journey is long, the end far, but at least it has begun.