There are few things in life that the proverbial Lone Wolf will suit just as fine. Alone, many wolves act as predators and hunt for food quite successfully.

One can of course jog alone - all one needs is a pair of good running shoes and, of course, a good pair of lungs. One can play solitaire - and declare himself a winner and no one will object. One can sing alone - in the dark or in the bathroom but even that sometimes some would question his lunacy.

Levity aside, we need others to get things in this world. Dwain Wade, Kobe Bryant or Le Bron James cannot win NBA games alone (though some of them try) without the four other team members. In the game of basketball that needs teamwork to win games.

We live in a world where no man is an island. People need people to get things done. Barbara Streisand said it for us: People who need people are the luckiest people in the world, even if her context is a bit off our thesis.

Our thesis partly explains why loners with extremely high intelligence quotient (IQ) do not quite make it big in the world while the people with high emotional quotient (even if slightly average in intellect) rule the world. The latter know how to pursue unity in diversity and they lean on one another.

A simple house table will not stand with one leg missing but we are belaboring our point a little bit too far.

To the point - Bohol is making things happen partly because we have a team of leaders that gel like a glued machine - each working differently but rowing in the same direction. Governor Erico Aumentado as "father of the province" has pastured his three solons in the districts to dance to the same rhythm, to respond together to the same beat of the drum.

In spite of many things needing improvement - let's give it to them. The province would have gained precious little if Aumentado and Representatives Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Eladio Jala pulled at each other to different directions. In Congress, even if we don't agree with their stand, united the three solons stand because divided they will fall. The other provinces can only salivate with envy.

As a team, they meet constantly, seeing projects (major and minor) through with the minimum of politics and credit grabbing. They promote Bohol like they had one umbilical cord at birth, exaggeration here but you see the point. Look at the circumferential roads cutting across the three districts, the major drainage project in the city and several others.

The four Bohol leaders have been promoting major tourism marketing forays abroad and when they speak about the island province, they speak so with granite conviction, one can tell they're not selling ice drops in hell.

Sparkling unity resulting in positive results are successes one cannot argue. Thus, the business and tourism sectors of the private group have been positively "contaminated" with the unity virus and have been holding hands with one another and then with government. They have talked their piece on priorities and problem areas - and in general government has listened.

Of course, there are problem areas that unity should also be sought about - in tempering corruption, in leading the guilty parties into the guillotine they deserve, in checking peace and order at a desirable level, and ensuring that the killings of militants and human right violations in rural Bohol do not go unnoticed - much less, unpunished.

There are problem areas - for indeed no province is without them.

Every rule has its exception, of course. And the epitome of disunity, the shameful example of utter contrarianism, political aggrandizement and personal interests can be best brought in the cases of Panglao and Corella towns. The partisanship has gone so petty that one group will always take the opposite position of the other party - for power play. Very soon they will debate whether the sun really rises in the east, for goodness sake.

Mayor Doloreich Dumaluan and Vice Mayor Pedro Fuertes of Panglao and Mayor Vito Rapal and Vice Mayor Isabelo Daquipil of Corella and their partisan armies are oil and water and black versus white movement. This goes to other towns as well whose public servants do not move forward because of disunity. They do not understand the word unity. They do not understand the words public interest. They do not understand the words common good. There are many words they do not understand.

From running the waters in Corella to the management of the Tarsier habitat and from water sourcing, approving budgets, implementing tourism rules in Panglao and God knows whatever issue has two sides to it, it is a 365-day ordeal of bickering and one-upsmanship.

That is the reason why we had always stood for elections in 2007. This smugness and arrogance of not having to account to the electorate and insensitivity to public opinion are functions of certainty of tenure that comes with a "No El" scenario. That we will not tolerate without issuing a peep - or a scorching editorial, if you want.

To be fair, there are evils in one party system, in cartels, in absence of checks and balance. We cautioned about this before elections in 2004, that democracy needs opposition to balance the scale of democratic governance. We believe then and we still do.

Still, if there are reasons to unite, by all means let us be one. If not, then let us agree to disagree - but not at the expense of the common good.

There is a time for everything.