ATTY. FRANK MALILONG:

With so much riches at their disposal, what have Cebu Governor Junjun Davide and City Mayor Tommy Osmeña done to improve our lives?

Did you know that Cebu is the wealthiest province in the country while Cebu City ranks next only to the three biggest cities in Metro Manila in their category?

A Rappler story citing a Commission on Audit (COA) report the other day said Cebu had total assets of P32.429 billion in 2016, some P2 billion more than what it had the year earlier. The province of Rizal is a far second with assets amounting to only P11.73 billion, just a shade highter than third-place Negros Occidental’s P11.042 billion as of the same period.

Cebu City’s wealth is actually slighly higher than the province’s at P32.623 billion but that is however, only good enough for fourth place behind Quezon City, Makati and Manila, according to the same Rappler rendition of the COA report.

Significantly, not one town in Cebu made it to the list of richest municipalities. This is probably because all the bigger towns like Talisay, Carcar, Naga and Bogo had been converted into cities during the last 15 years.

Note, that the measurement was of total assets, not income, meaning the amount of bank deposits as well as the value of real properties owned by the local government unit, among others. I was looking for Zamboanga del Norte and Masbate (colleague Bobby Nalzaro’s and my native land, respectively) in the Rappler list but I guess we will forever be chained to the financial hall of shame, not fame.)

The next question is, with so much riches at their disposal, what have Cebu Governor Junjun Davide and City Mayor Tommy Osmeña done to improve our lives? What will they further do?

Some of our common friends look at me with disbelief when I asked them that question about Davide. Where have you been? But that’s precisely the point: I have always been around but I haven’t heard much about what was happening in the province. And a lot of people share that same feeling. Surely, Davide’s team must have accomplishments to show for the four years that they have been in power but why are they not telling the public? Whose job is it to inform us--the people--that a road has been concreted here and a hospital built there?

In the case of Cebu City, Tommy’s problem is not about having a good PR team because he doesn’t need any. Rather, it is about what he, as his own best spokesman, can tell us in the light of everything that we see everyday: piles of garbage and the deplorable condition of many of the city’s roads, not to mention the horrendous traffic situation almost everywhere in the city, except perhaps the mountain barangays.

Tommy has consistently refused to touch the billions of pesos in the city’s coffers that came from the sale of portions of the South Road Properties (SRP) by his predecessor, Mike Rama because he believes that the properties should be returned by the buyers since the sale was invalid.

Tommy’s resolve to extricate the city from what he regards not only as an illegal but a grossly disadvantageous deal is admirable. But approximately 15 months have passed since he announced his decision to have the sale nullified and nothing much has been achieved. We can’t be engaged in a staredown with the buyers forever, can we?

The SRP and the proceeds from the Rama sale must have been part of the assets that made Cebu City fourth wealthiest nationwide. But what is wealth if the real owners--again, the people--cannot enjoy it?