Election is about the only time, the electorate feels that the power to change is in their hands.

"Integrity and competence" are about the simplest generic terms we can coin to reflect the true worth of a candidate. If the electorate chooses to hang themselves by choosing on the basis of political patronage, monetary consideration or blood lines, that is their choice. No one can force an electorate who prefer underdevelopment and an era of corruption in his municipal halls, to vote otherwise.

Democracy, for all its wisdom, cannot prevent political suicide from happening.

The electorate will have to be extra careful in casting his ballot because the Local Government Code has empowered mayors with stupendous authority that can make or unmake a town. Verily, the story of the rise and fall of towns is a story of a good and bad mayor.

Electing a town mayor-granted dynamic prerogatives and fund access by the Local Government Code is likened to giving a man a gun. He can use the gun to hunt or protect himself, or he can murder people and shot himself in the temple. It is therefore important that the matrix of criteria when one votes for a town executive should be as expansive as they be discriminating.

You have 18 days to choose well - your own paradise or your hell. Let us cite a few examples to prove our point and center on our flagship industry: tourism. And let's talk of four prime towns: Panglao, Carmen, Dauis and Loboc.

Panglao is lucky, media continues to lionize its potential and had so far ignored its basic decay. But Panglao reelectionist mayor Doloreich Dumaluan is emasculated by too much politics in that island - from both camps. The end result is a tourist gem that cannot bring potable water to thousands of tourists and a garbage problem that states one in the face like a daily nightmare. Where is leadership here?

Loboc town mayor Leon Calipusan of the famous Loboc River Cruise, built a P12-Million smart-looking docking port but the bailey bridge that leads to it remains a questionable infastructure. So we have a monumental multi-million white elephant out there and a not a single world-class rest room is in the site where hundreds of tourist gather by noon time. Why should the mayor not be criticized by concerned industry players regarding these?

The world-famous Chocolate Hills in Carmen, has circled the globe in multi-million peso advertisements in glitzy magazines and tourist television shows as such an awesome nature's wonder. But because the hills are run partly by a municipal government that views development from a parochial stand point and is woefully lacking in imagination, the poor tourists are soon turned from being mesmerized to bored the longer he stays in the complex that offers no alternative source of activity. With an anemic, narrow-view kind of town leadership under Mayor Pedro Budiongan whose wife is running for mayor, nobody will complain if the national government or the private sector steps in and, my gosh, improve that Chocolate Hills complex.

What about Dauis? Well, the town that is fronted by one of the most scenic view of Tagbilaran Bay does not have adequate water supply and, in fact, has an unpaid water bill to the Bohol Water Utilities Inc. The town folks are quite unanimous in their collective exasperation that they have an "invisible" mayor (Lulu Bongalos) who is not always there and the town is instead run by many MMs or "Murag Mayor". How can a headless chicken ever get into the right direction?

In your respective towns, look at the strides your municipality has taken over the last nine years or so. Certainly one must have a verdict on how successfully your LGU leaders had steered the town into economic and moral progress or decay, as the case may be.

May 14, you town folks of 47 municipalities and this city, can decide whether you want to take some more of the same or strike back for more dramatic changes that you all deserve. Use that vote well.

On the other hand, the unprecedented 78% performance rating of sitting Governor Rico Aumentado can speak for itself. Can that translate into actual votes?

Give your message to your leaders - go out and vote on May 14.

MISSING SONNY

There are public servants who give honor to public service as a badge of trust. Some public servants are really born committed and dedicated. One of them is a non-Boholano who had generated such high respect and admiration here during his four-year stint as the dynamic manager of the Philippine Port Authority in Bohol.

He proved the adage true once more that four year is too short for a good manager and too long for a bad one. His name is Raul "Sonny" Oblenda who died with his boots on. He succumbed to heart failure at the young age of 55 last Wednesday while in the thick of preparation for the inauguration of the Jagna Port and visit of GMA this Saturday.

The Chronicle, Governor Aumentado and 1st District Representative Edgar Chatto are living witnesses to the dedication of the man.

While doing his walking exercise regimen last Tuesday, he seemed "out of breath" and decided to have a checkup at the Chong Hua General Hospital in metropolitan Cebu.

Little did any one know, much less Sonny, that it would be his last ferry trip coming from the first "Tourist Port" in Tagbilaran City that he had almost single handedly brought into a smashing completion.

Breakfast time Wednesday, this dedicated soldier of public service was still texting from Cebu City whether the Welcome Center at the handsome city port could be included in the president's Saturday visit. A loyal soldier to the last.

We cite with exemplary exception the life and times of Raul Oblenda with this Editorial. In a bureaucracy that teems with corruption, sloth and incompetence - one man we know first hand dared to be different. And what a difference he has made.

Farewell, Sonny. May your kind of public servants increase.