EDITORIAL - Tantamount to sabotage

A new administration is set to take over the Cebu Provincial Government by the end of the month. But according to the head of the transition team of Governor-elect Pamela Baricuatro, the people of the outgoing administration don’t seem too keen on making it easy for them.

Lawyer Edmund Lao said their team proposed the turnover of essential documents and meetings with department heads between June 16 and 30. But have so far not received any answer from the Office of the Governor and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Provincial Director Dr. Jesus Robel Sastrillo Jr.

“Kung ang purpose sa outgoing administration is to help the incoming administration para dili kaayo naay disruption, ngano dili man himoong available ang documents?” Lao said in a report in this newspaper.

But then there’s a good development; Sastrillo said the department heads were ordered to submit their respective State of Local Governance Reports by June 17 so these can be consolidated into a full transition report by June 18. Meanwhile, an executive briefing between the outgoing and incoming transition teams is tentatively scheduled for June 23 to 27.

Indeed, the new administration needs all the help it can get from the outgoing one, especially as the latter has been in power for a long time and its records run long. The jurisdiction of Cebu Province isn’t exactly small either; we are talking about 44 towns not to mention the six component cities here.

The outgoing administration should cooperate in making this transition go smoothly, and not try to make it hard for the new one to carry out its functions, because that would be tantamount to sabotage.

We understand that outgoing Governor Gwen Garcia has protested her loss to Baricuatro, but she must also be prepared for the possibility that she might lose that protest and so must be ready for it.

Because if public service is somehow affected or hampered by lack of information or records, it’s the Cebuanos who will suffer.