City council should stop ‘isolating’ Nava

“It's always fun to be the underdog and surprise people. It certainly puts less pressure on you.”

—Derek Drouin

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IT’S not healthy for the Iloilo City Council to deny lone opposition stalwart Plaridel Nava a committee chairmanship while throwing all the delicious meat to those allied with the City Hall administration.

The move was tantamount to intentionally isolating the firebrand councilor from Lapuz district ostensibly for being a bone in the throat of Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas.

An attempt to isolate the opposition can be otherwise interpreted as a callous move to stifle the check and balance, which is a vital cog in democracy.

When the opposition is in the receiving end, those in power and in the majority will always be viewed as bullies and heartless. 

History has been cruel for those in the higher echelon that are unkind to those in the lower ground. 

Anyway, we are tackling only the issue on committee chairmanship, not about silencing the opposition per se.

But silencing Nava may be technically the principal propositum of any move to prevent him from using the major access roads in the legislative mainstream, where he can best express his stentorian ability to right the wrong and showcase his own elements of surprise. 

There are many ways to skin the cat, as the saying goes.

 

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Awarding two chairmanships to the other councilors though and shutting the door on Nava was handwriting on the wall. 

Nava looked bullied and underdog. 

It was like the case of a group of musical thugs, using their superior number, conspired to deny Beethoven entry to his piano room.   

As a sign of goodwill and magnanimity, the City Council should have played fair and square with the city’s most prominent opposition figure and allowed him to chair a committee of his choice, or where Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon and the other council members see Nava fit and able to govern and excel as committee presiding officer.

Although he belongs in the other co-equal branch of government, Treñas certainly knew what was going on in the legislative body’s game of musical chairs and “could have done” something, in one way or the other, to ensure Nava wasn’t treated as unwanted child or outcast.

The City Hall administration would have looked good if Alexander’s empire was divided equally among all the aldermen—allies or not.

 

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HALL of Fame boxing trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t want Senator Manny Pacquiao to fight again even only in exhibition. 

The defeated presidential aspirant, who terrorized the lightflyweight, flyweight, featherweight, lightweight, welterweight divisions during his heydays, does not have anything to prove, insisted Roach.

Even his wife, Jinkee, nixed any possible comeback for the 43-year-old old former eight-time world champion.

If Pacquiao wants to fight again let him do it. It’s his own body and he knows what he is doing as adult.

Roach will never prevent him from going up the ring again as long as the color of money won’t change.  

He definitely needs more money after reportedly spending and wasting more or less P500 million in his recent failed bid to become president.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)