Only Mayor Osmeña finds Terminal 2 ugly
For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you Deputy Speaker of the House, Representative Gwen F. Garcia who is a member of all the congressional committees in the House of Representatives. We've had Representative Garcia on our talkshow since she was Governor of Cebu, however this is the second time I've interviewed her as deputy speaker. Of course, we have to talk about the impeachment of Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Baustista until he decided to call it quits before Congress booted him out.
We also discussed the issue that would have ended in the impeachment and conviction of former Supreme Court chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. Thankfully, the Supreme Court gave credit to the Quo Warranto case filed against Sereno and they literally kicked her out for so many valid reasons.
But I asked Representative Garcia if she would consider running for governor again and she answered this question and she threw her own questions on what the current Cebu governor is planning to do when he proposed to borrow P1.5 billion in order to construct a 20-story building. We are against this proposal simply because this wasn't proposed during the last elections. More importantly, we know too well that when then Garcia was governor she left Cebu Province without any debts. With Governor Davide there have been no huge projects, so why is it that all of a sudden there is a need to construct a 20-story building? More so that there is an old rule that stated that no building should be taller than the dome of the Capitol Building. So why is this being violated all of a sudden?
If you are on social media, netizens are saying that the Capitol Building is not an ordinary building as it was constructed in 1937 during the American period. People are saying that elected government officials come and go, but the Capitol Building is an institutional memoir of the provincial government. If Governor Davide doesn't love Cebu, then he is showing it all the more by constructing this new building. So I suggest that Governor Davide should refrain from destroying the cultural heritage of the Provincial Capitol.
So watch this very interesting talk with Deputy Speaker Representative Gwen Garcia on SkyCable's channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV's channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.
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There is no question that last Thursday was a proud day for Cebuanos when the GMR-Megawide consortium had the brand new Terminal 2 that they leased for 25 years blessed with no less than President Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte and almost all the Cabinet secretaries were in attendance. Kudos to my dear friends, Louie Herrera of Megawide and Andrew Harrison, GMR's man on the ground who didn't even show up during the blessing, thus giving his bosses their time to accept the accolades for giving Cebu and the nation its newest airport.
While the Cebuano community and the media were all one in congratulating people about our new airport Terminal 2, I couldn't help but notice a story on page 10 of The FREEMAN last Friday that read: "Mayor Osmeña said 'It's ugly and looks like a poultry farm, the design I think they should transfer to Bantayan because it is where the poultry products are abundant.'" Apparently The FREEMAN got this remark from SunStar last Dec. 23, 2013.
Last May 27, The FREEMAN got this quote from Representative Raul del Mar who said, "It will be a delight to our domestic travellers to be able to also experience the same standards as those of Terminal 2. Cebuanos and all Filipinos will undoubtedly be filled with pride for this is an outstanding accomplishment." I understand that the majority of Cebu's broadcast media took turns in lambasting Mayor Osmeña. From day one, his brother Senator Serge Osmeña III, questioned this airport deal, giving full support to the Filinvest group. So the least we expected from Mayor Osmeña was to be civil about it. But no, he could not even refrain himself from showing his displeasure. What a shame!