FRANK MALILONG:
The burden is bigger on Team Rama to stanch the bleeding and avoid demoralization in their ranks
Jerry Guardo has confirmed Team Rama’s worst fears. He has left the party to make common cause with Mayor Tommy Osmeña and the BOPK. At least, Guardo is honest about his intentions. He did not claim that he was going independent; How quickly the wheels of fortune turn. How long ago was it when Team Rama captured three BOPK members? Noel Wenceslao, Gerry Carillo and Richie Osmeña abandoned Osmeña, who had just suffered his first political defeat in the hands of Mike Rama; Rama never got to wrest control of the council, however, because the expected anticipated additional defections from the BOPK did not materialize as Osmeña counter-maneuvered. Thus, a BOPK council continued to exist and torment Rama until the end of his term; It’s different now because Tommy has the numbers.
Jerry Guardo has confirmed Team Rama’s worst fears. He has left the party to make common cause with Mayor Tommy Osmeña and the BOPK. At least, Guardo is honest about his intentions. He did not claim that he was going independent.
How quickly the wheels of fortune turn. How long ago was it when Team Rama captured three BOPK members? Noel Wenceslao, Gerry Carillo and Richie Osmeña abandoned Osmeña, who had just suffered his first political defeat in the hands of Mike Rama.
Rama never got to wrest control of the council, however, because the expected anticipated additional defections from the BOPK did not materialize as Osmeña counter-maneuvered.
It’s different now because Tommy has the numbers. James Cuenco was quoted by this paper yesterday as saying that they are still the majority in city legislature. I think James was being sarcastic. Dave Tumulak and Hanz Abella did say that they were not defecting to Osmeña’s side when they resigned from Team Rama but for all intents and purposes, the two are already BOPK partisans.
Cuenco himself was the subject of defection rumors, along with Guardo and Jun Alcover, weeks ago. But he told me he was not changing political loyalties and it appears that he spoke the truth. As for Alcover, I don’t think he and Guardo are going to be party-mates again, at least not in the immediate future.
Not that Osmeña needs any more conversions. The new political equation in the council allows him to push his agenda, political or otherwise. Lawyers have a term to describe those who may be similarly minded as Guardo or Tumulak or Abella. They are surplusage.
On the other hand, the burden is bigger on Team Rama to stanch the bleeding and avoid demoralization in their ranks. A decimated party is bad for the morale of its ward leaders and foot soldiers. Unless Rama, Vice Mayor Edgar Labella and other party bigwigs act as decisively as Osmeña did when he started losing his men some three years ago, a mass defection to the BOPK is a distinct possibility.
I do not know whether that would be bad or good for the city. But in the months leading to last year’s elections, I suggested in this space that the city’s electorate should vote straight. I said then that the mayor versus council squabble that marked Rama’s entire second term proved the necessity for the mayor and the councilors to come from the same party.
Apparently, we haven’t have had enough of quarreling at City Hall as we elected a BOPK mayor and a Team Rama council last year. The idealists among us assert that the set-up was good for democracy, for check and balance, particularly; that we cannot afford a rubber stamp council.
The present council has adopted Osmeña’s position on certain issues such as the 93-1 land swap between the City and the Province but the mayor obviously thinks that it is not enough. He wanted a more “cooperative” council. Well, it looks like he finally got one. What Tommy wants from the council, he will now get.