Election season

Iwalk to my grandmother’s house on Urgello St. from the office on P. del Rosario St. after work almost every night. You see, I like to have a night cap before I head home to Banilad. To clear the head, so to speak, of the day’s work.

Last Monday night was no different, except that when I passed by Junquera, emerging from that alley that connects from Don Pedro Cui, a portion of the road was cordoned off. There was a distant rumbling.

I looked up the street to look for the source. It must have come from the opposite direction, hidden when the road bends as it approaches P. del Rosario, because I did not see anything.

I looked down and that was when I noticed that the side of the road had been newly scraped.

What a waste of asphalt, I thought. Then it dawned on me.

Is it that time already?

I mean, I know Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has been racking up pogi points after he agreed to let the city’s public library operate 24/7 because a student had requested it.

On top of that, he announced that he would open more study centers around the city to accommodate students who need a quiet place that is conducive to learning.

A few weeks later, he declared that the oval at the Cebu City Sports Center would also be open 24/7 because a worker at a BPO had asked for a safe place to exercise.

Nah. It was too early to be electioneering. After all, the mayoral polls aren’t until May next year.

Then earlier this month, Osmeña said that he wanted to turn a property at the South Road Properties (SRP) into a playground to address juvenile delinquency.

“A lot of these things is because they are young and restless so they all have to do something,” he said.

Stop, I wanted to say. You had me at “24/7 public library.”

The mayor, though, was on a roll.

He quickly changed his mind about an ordinance requiring motorcycle and bike drivers to wear reflectorized vests at night when this didn’t sit well with some netizens, who made sure the mayor knew how they felt.

“Given your feedback, I will not let the ordinance come into effect. We will find another way,” he posted in his official Facebook page on April 6.

Last Sunday, he enumerated initiatives he has done to address the city’s traffic problem, from road widening to the undertaking of the South Road Properties.

Even so, I took these recent actions in stride. He is, after all, a politician.

As I made my way to R. Landon, the idea of a mayor who actually feels “the pulse of social fabric and comes out with solutions for the problems of the people” intrigued me.

Then I stepped on the uneven surface of the newly scraped asphalt.