Desperate

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña must be in dire political straits, a desperation made evident by his tight embrace of the habal-habal cause. The habalhabal is a public utility motorcycle ride service whose nationwide operation was stopped recently by the Supreme Court for a number of reasons, primary among them being safety.

I say dire political straits because Osmeña has never been known to be a pro-poor guy. In fact he has a history of rubbing the poor the wrong way. These historic lessons have led Cebuanos to believe Osmeña will never embrace a poor man’s cause unless it is politically expedient for him to do so. With his reelection at best uncertain, he needs to tap even the poor in his bid.

Now the habal-habal is self-admittedly poor. Being poor and in dire need of a means of livelihood are the recurring themes being used by habal-habal drivers in seeking a reversal of the Supreme Court order. If Osmeña can get into the good graces of this sector, it will be a huge chunk of votes chalked up in his column.

Running into their hundreds in Cebu, not counting the hundreds more of family and extended family members, Osmeña is not about to let go of this golden parachute, never mind if, on their behalf, he will have to twist a few facts, unmindful of what it will do to his credibility.

For instance, Osmeña claims the economy of Cebu will collapse without the habal-habal, or something to that effect. Really now? So he is ceding his very own contribution and the contribution of the rest of the Cebuanos to the habal-habal. What an insult to each and every Cebuano who, by dint of hard work, helped make Cebu and Cebu’s economy what it is today.

But wait. Since when has the habal-habal been around? I do not think it has been around as an organized service for more than five years. Cebu City, on the other hand, has been around for more than 400 years, building its success on the back of every Cebuano’s hard work, ingenuity, resiliency, and dogged determination.

Osmeña cannot sweep all of that under the rug in favor of a story he has concocted. He lays the butter on thick on the BPO industry, harping about its millions of dollars flowing into the local economy, almost to the complete exclusion of every other industry whose combined contributions almost makes the BPO almost irrelevant by comparison.

And why not? Like the habal-habal, the BPO is relatively new. Osmeña cannot claim for them what the others have already contributed over the centuries. Unless of course Osmeña expects to benefit immensely from a little reshuffling of the facts. Not even every BPO worker takes a habal-habal. So what is Osmeña talking about?

‘Osmeña claims the economy of Cebu will collapse without the habal-habal, or something to

that effect. Really now?’