Watch out, here come the sinkholes

Next to the capital Manila, Cebu City is the most important city in the Philippines. Aside from its historical and cultural significance, its strategic location at the very heart of the islands makes it the hub of commerce, learning and health.

Given its stature in the life of the nation, much is expected of this Queen City of the South. Cebuanos are held in high esteem. Whenever a Cebuano confronts a challenge, it becomes almost automatic for standards to be set high to test his measure.

And then suddenly, from within the Cebu City council, the second most important legislature in these 7,107 islands, comes this stinker -- somebody is actually proposing the excavation of two giant sinkholes to solve the problem of flooding.

Wow! If the proposal was only made in a bar, it would have been understandable if somebody gave the proponent a good whack on the head with a rock. But the idea was born in a legislature and thus, by force of circumstance, must be accorded the dignity it "deserves."

And so the sinkhole proposal will be discussed, debated, argued about, and otherwise given ample time, scrutiny and importance, all at taxpayers' expense, not to mention the credulity of citizens. Media will be reporting on its progress through the legislative mill for the Cebuanos to digest, if they could.

For all the labor that went into the process of electing representatives of the people, it is difficult to take pride in a piece of work that seeks to legislate sinkholes as the solution to flooding and advertise it as truly Cebuano-made.

Creativity is such a Cebuano hallmark that one of our own is tops in furniture design while another is way up there in high fashion. The quality of our craftsmanship is reflected in the big ships that foreigners come to buy from us. The intelligence of our population made us the academic and I.T. hub of the region.

And then along comes the sinkhole resolution, and everything that went into our collective name as something to be proud of gets swallowed up in some unfathomable abyss that defies definition. And all that is left for the Cebuano to do is scratch an unscratchable itch.