BUREAU of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Sixto Esquivias IV was forced to resign from his post because of shame.

“The BIR has a large tax collection shortfall right now, and I feel ashamed to stay,” he said.

Sun.Star accepts donations for victims of Typhoon Ondoy

Let’s be glad the sense of shame is not yet lost to all.

***
“Resigning,” Esquivias said, “was the honorable thing to do.”

“If someone can do the job better, then why would I stay?” he said.

Think of those who cling to their post by their fingernails even in the face of the worst accusation, not only of inefficiency, but of graft and corruption.

***

This is the same shame which could have restrained pardoned plunder convict former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada from running again for president in what he called
“the last performance of my life.”

Maybe he thought of what the Bard said that “he was not born to shame and upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit.”

***

Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmeña is running for a House seat in the city’s south district while his wife, Margot, is set to run for councilor.

His sister, Georgia, and cousin, former Sen. John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña, will slug it out for the mayoral post. Councilor Ritchie Osmeña is up for reelection.

The dynasty would be complete if Fuente Osmeña and Osmeña Boulevard are also running in next year’s elections.

***

Mayor Tommy’s latest maneuver to field Margot for city councilor in the south district and to touch base with Rep. Tony Cuenco’s camp by offering his son, Ronald, a
seat in the council, may have shaken the opposition.

Businessman Atan Guardo and Lahug Barangay Captain Mary An de los Santos may drop their plans to run for House seats and instead run for mayor and vice mayor.

Or they might just have seen a weaker administration team for the city’s top posts.

***

Police are looking into some loose ends in the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) raid on the safe house of the Rolex heist suspects in Sitio Little Marikina, Estaca, Compostela, Cebu.

That should be easier than actually hunting down and neutralizing the suspects.