Power-mad  acting mayor & patriotic mayor

By Al S. Mendoza

 

THE acting mayor of Capas, Tarlac, was in the news recently.

Alas, for the wrong reasons.

He immediately exhibited a negative reaction to plans of a quarantine procedure for Filipinos repatriated from Hubei.

And what is Hubei again?

It is that province in China where the deadly novel coronavirus originated through its major capital Wuhan, a city of 11 million.

Already, the virus has claimed nearly a thousand lives and put thousands more in hospitals—some 300 of them being PUIs (persons under investigation) confined either in hospitals or quarantine stations in the Philippines.

The name of that acting mayor doesn’t deserve mention here.

For, as always, any display of unpatriotic act does not have space here.  Never.

Said the jerk, who was the acting mayor in the absence of the mayor:  “They should have consulted me first before deciding on bringing the expats from China to Capas.”

Or words to that effect.

The gall.

Who is he to say that, in the first place?

Does he own Capas?

Or, to be precise, does he own the Athletes’ Village in New Clark City?

While it is true that New Clark City is located in Capas, that does not give him the outright power to have jurisdiction over the edifice that was used during the just-ended SEA Games.

If he doesn’t know it yet, the Village is national property and the agency tasked to supervise and control it is the BCDA.

And to think he isn’t even the mayor.  N’yet.

What more if he gets elected to the town’s top post?

Indeed, what power, no matter how minute it is, can do to some self-centered nincompoops.

But for what he had done, I doubt it very much if he’d become mayor someday.

Anyway, the creep wasn’t simply off-key but a first-class deaf to the core as well—if not callous, period.

Our brothers and sisters in Hubei badly needed help and here is a public official denying that outright.

Aren’t public officials the first line of defense when it comes to providing assistance to our troubled brethren abroad?

That’s why it is time to shower praise on the mayor of Capas, who, upon his return, swiftly declared that our beleaguered compatriots in Hubei “are very much welcome in Capas.”

Attaboy!

And since he just did a heroic act, his name is worth mentioning here:  Mayor Catacutan of Capas, you deserve a medal of valor as he is the epitome of a true public leader!

Our 30 expats from Hubei are now at New Clark City’s Athletes’ Village, together with the six crew flight members and 13 medical persons assisting our brethren.

If, after 14 days, they are free of any virus infection, they’d be allowed to go back home to their families.

Otherwise, should anyone showed symptoms of the virus, he’d be isolated in a hospital and treated accordingly.

Let us pray for their safety and eventual complete recovery.

OK, let’s include in our prayers for that acting mayor to mend his ways, that he may see the light.

Everyone, anyways, deserves a second chance.

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