Spirit of cooperation

To his credit, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama did spell out clearly some of his programs during his inaugural address to the Cebu City Council last Monday and it looked quite promising.

Among his priorities are building a retirement facility and hospital that offers among other services a world class geriatrics ward in the South Road Properties (SRP).

This project as proposed by the SRP management dovetails with a proposal by Rama’s predecessor, Tomas Osmeña to build a world-class medical center in Cebu City’s prized reclamation project.

He also mentioned Cebu City’s bid to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and plans for Pope Francis’ visit to Cebu City for the 2016 International Eucharistic Congress.

While also mentioning his commitment to fulfill some of the proposed talking points of the Mega Cebu 2050 vision which were spelled out more in broad strokes rather than actual nitty gritty details, Rama still managed to present some of his targets that include building two more hospitals through private sector partnership and expanding the current Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC).

The bird’s eye view given by Mayor Rama looked good as explained by some of his key advisors like Rene Mercado during the mayor’s rounds with local media the past week.

As again, the stumbling block remains the distrust and political animosity between the Rama administration and the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) bloc, spearheaded now by party chief Tomas Osmeña’s wife Councilor Margot.

There is some truth to Councilor Osmeña’s contention that Mayor Rama should have prepared a financial assessment report to his inaugural address rather than a wish list of projects and programs which she admitted were quite good.

The bottomline remains raising the funds for these ambitious programs which meant improving tax collection efforts, inviting investors and selling city government lots like those in SRP.

The SRP will always remain a bone of contention between Rama and the BO-PK led council since it would probably be the biggest source of revenues for the city.

To this end, Rama has extended a hand of friendship to the council and it would certainly be beneficial for Cebu City if the mayor, his allies and the BO-PK set aside their differences and work towards at least meeting each other’s goals halfway.

This doesn’t mean having to demand a committee chairmanship immediately as Councilor Mary Ann delos Santos did on the inaugural City Council session.

Councilor Osmeña did welcome Rama ally Councilor James Cuenco’s appointment as chairperson of the council’s tourism committee. Hopefully, the spirit of cooperation starts there and not in demanding committee chairmanships.