Don't lose sleep

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is fond of tossing controversial ideas to the public to gauge the reaction. Not that he intends to abandon an idea if it meets stiff public resistance. Not a chance. Osmeña is not built that way. But there is something to profit from tossing an idea to the public. It allows him to measure his own defense. Osmeña is not one to go to war unprepared.

But that is assuming all his ideas are perfect, which they are not. One idea Osmeña just tossed to the public deals with his desire to ban private vehicles from the downtown area once his pet project, the Bus Rapid Transit, is complete and swings into effect, assuming it gets off the ground at all. But not getting off the ground is an entirely different story altogether.

So let us just stick to the idea of banning private cars from the downtown area on the assumption that the BRT does get completed according to its estimated timetable. Originally estimated to be completed by 2019, the several delays it has seen will likely not make it operational until 2020 at the earliest. Now, if you are one of those people for whom the idea seemed to hit them like a sledgehammer, spare yourself the agony and the angst.

The chances of private vehicles getting banned from the downtown area are slim. For one, it is unconstitutional. Osmeña himself already lost a similar case when he once shut down the SRP to all vehicular traffic. For another, it is entirely possible that Osmeña may no longer be the mayor of the downtown area, or any other area in Cebu City for that matter, after the local elections in 2019.

And why may Osmeña not be the mayor anymore after 2019? It may not be because somebody more deserving to be mayor could beat him at the polls, although that too is entirely possible. But Osmeña may no longer be the mayor after 2019 precisely because of his intention to ban private vehicles from the downtown area sometime after 2019.

Banning private vehicles from the downtown area will become such a humongous election issue from which Osmeña may never recover from. Banning private vehicles from the downtown area will become the Waterloo of Osmeña. I am so confidently sure he will get defeated in the polls on account of such an idea that I am willing to bet an entire month's salary of Osmeña himself on such eventuality.

And this is no joke. I am a regular and religious taxpayer. I have paid so much taxes in my life to the government that I should own, at the very least, more than just the equivalent of a month's salary of the mayor. So, to those tempted to react violently to the mayor's idea, please fret no more. Having taken off from a slippery platform, it is an idea that cannot but slam belly first on the ground.

There will be no banning of anything by 2019 because there will be no one to issue a ban. On the other hand, in the very unlikely event that Osmeña survives his ridiculous idea at the polls, it still pays to trust in our laws. Laws are made not only to instill order, they also stop people from making fools of themselves. If, for nothing else, our fundamental law, the Constitution, will be on the side of the sane. So worry not, therefore. You can grab a good night's sleep tonight.