The former mayor of Cebu City, Tomas Osmeña, left an uninhabitable office for his successor and former vice mayor as he ended his term this week.
The office, located at the eighth floor of the city hall, has been likened to an abandoned construction zone.
“Most of the tiles have been taken out. Only raw concrete can be seen in the washroom. Gone are the glass dividers. The lighting fixtures and ceiling are gone as well. The former vibrant office is a gray space with dirty floor and bare walls,” reported Cebu Daily News, a local paper.
Osmeña’s successor, Mayor Edgardo Labella, who started his term on Monday, said he was surprised at Osmeña’s act. “Why did he even have to do that?” he said.
Perhaps Osmeña saw nothing wrong with what he did. After all, he spent P2 million of his own money when he renovated the office three years ago, upon his election. He sprang for renovation because the city council rejected his request for funds.
Perhaps, too, Osmeña was just so spiteful he could not bear to leave anything good behind for his former vice mayor who had the gall to challenge—and defeat—him.
Labella’s camp said they were considering filing charges against Osmeña and his people for destroying the office of the mayor. But perhaps a bigger infraction would be the demeaning of the Office of the Mayor through an act so petty and childish it is almost laughable.
What was Osmeña thinking when he spent his own money renovating the place—he would stay there forever? Nice job confirming the widely held belief that most politicians look upon public service as an entitlement.
It is also not correct to say that Osmeña simply left the office the way he had happened upon it in 2016. We are sure he did not arrive, on his first day at work, to an office that is akin to an ill-managed construction site.
It would not have impoverished the former mayor to leave at least a decent, working area for his successor. After all, ideally, both ran for office not to get too comfortable in their offices but to actually serve the needs of their constituents.
But no, Osmeña had to strip the place bare to prove a point: “If I can’t continue to have this nice office, nobody else can!”
What he ended up transmitting to the rest of us, however, is that some people do not even meet the bare minimum of the requirements of decency.