THE answer of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo, entitled “A Clearer Picture”, which appeared in last week’s issue under the column “Selda Numero 10” by Jose B. Perez to the editorial “Bukol ni Mayor” two issues ago was “in the interest of fair play”. It was a very long answer --- longer than the editorial and, sad to say, it missed the whole point of the editorial.

        In effect, the editorial was objecting to the move of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo in asking authority from the Sanggunian Panlungsod for him to enter into a loan worth about P115 million. The reason he gave was: “we only decided to pursue borrowing to finish the (Coliseum) project after ensuring that the basic infrastructure and socioeconomic services are in place to benefit ordinary citizens.”

        As far as we, the citizens of this city, are concerned the coliseum project is a done deal. It should have been finished by now by virtue of the referendum in the 1990s whereby the city “overwhelmingly endorsed the establishment of an integrated terminal and a coliseum”. In the campaign for the said referendum, the estimated cost in constructing the coliseum was so specific that it was approved for such an amount only. The overwhelming approval in the referendum did not give Mayor Jesse M. Robredo authority to go beyond what was allotted and specified for the construction of the coliseum as of the year the referendum was held. If the good mayor found himself “on the other side of the (political) fence when a new administration took over” and could not procure “enough national assistance to see the project through,” the change in political flags was never made a conditio sine qua non in the referendum. If the coliseum failed to rise and have a roof to break the investment-friendly skyline of Naga City, it is a reality the administration of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo has to contend with. As is, it is a sore spot that inflicts pain on the long list of accomplishments that the good mayor has done for the City of Naga. It prominently stands out as a “bukol”.

        As far as we, the citizens of this city, are concerned there is no solid ground for the City Mayor to support his asking the Sanggunian Panlungsod for an authority to enter into a new set of loans to finish the coliseum. He needs another referendum for that, not an authority from the Sanggunian Panlungsod. Should the Sanggunian Panlungsod give him that authority, which mostly it would considering the manner by which Mayor Robredo twists the arms of the members of the Sanggunian if only to get what he wants, the Sanggunian would be breaking boundary lines. To reiterate, the matter about the coliseum is one for a people’s referendum, not one for a Sanggunian’s authority.

        The issue of the unfinished coliseum is truly a “bukol” in Mayor Jesse M. Robredo’s administration because if only we do a pagsalingoy, just as the partnership of the Mayor and his Vice-Mayor Gabriel Hidalgo Bordado is doing in the broadcast media, we cannot escape the historical fact that there was once a city mayor in Naga by the name of Ramon H. Felipe, Jr. who was able to build the huge Naga City Supermarket and introduced other basic improvements without increasing by even one centavo the realty taxes in the city. The denial of Mayor Robredo that the “parallel reforms in land valuation in the city is connected to the proposed (P115 million) borrowings” is a knee-jerk reaction. The parallel is just too obvious. Both terms in the parallel have one common item: taxes We were not born yesterday, our dear Mayor.

        If, indeed, the coliseum would “play a specific role in marketing the city as a hub for sports, entertainment and conventions and help sustain economic growth” and that the city has “got a lot of chips --- good governance, burgeoning business and social uplift and reform – so that it is easier to keep on winning,” why is it that there are no takers, no private investors, to provide the roof and other amenities to make the coliseum “the best of its kind in this part of the country”?

        Time is running out on Mayor Jesse M. Robredo. The “bukol” must go before 2010 or it stays with him beyond 2010.