Politics of revenge

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is a fan of ancient China’s great military strategist Sun Tzu, which obviously contributed to his being acknowledged as one of the best political strategists around. He has won elections on two different situations, as incumbent and as a challenger, or should we say underdog. His win against former mayor Michael Rama last year can even be considered an upset, considering the political machinery and resources the latter possessed then.

I don’t know if Osmeña did read this passage from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” (he must have) and use this in the 2016 mayoral elections and the months before it, but this seemed to depict what happened then. “If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak that he may grow arrogant.”

Reading Sun Tzu, though does not help us define Osmeña’s politics, although it helps us understand some of his actions. There’s a certain coldness in Sun Tzu’s teachings, unlike the way Osmeña is conducting his politics, which is to a certain extent wrapped in emotion, meaning ruthless. Just consider the manner he is currently running the city.

But I could sense that after he defeated Rama last year, he already laid down a plan on how to maintain his hold on City Hall (the first chapter in “The Art of War” is about planning). Consider, for example, that the mayor hasn’t talked about major projects for the city, especially on solid waste disposal and road maintenance. Instead, what he has been touting, among others, is his sardines for garbage program. His actions seemed to be designed in wooing voters and breaking up the once formidable Team Rama machinery in preparation for 2019.

His politics of revenge is showcased in the way he has been assaulting the hold of Team Rama-aligned barangays on their turfs and his success in regaining the majority in the city council by recruiting Team Rama councilors to his Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK). But the most obvious is his effort to scuttle Rama’s sale of South Road Properties (SRP) lots by going after the firms that bought the land, primarily SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for Cebuanos, he has found it difficult to fully unfurl his politics of revenge under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who appointed Michael Dino last year as presidential assistant for the Visayas. Dino has a history with Osmeña, who blocked his major Banilad project, a joint venture with the Provincial Government then headed by Gwendolyn Garcia, whom the mayor considers as a bitter rival.

Dino may not admit it but he not only does not like Osmeña, some of his policies are also geared towards stymying Tomas’s political intentions. As I said before, Osmeña has no major projects to speak of under his current term, thus the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project by the national government must have been manna for him. He is owning up the project and could claim it as his own during the 2019 electoral campaign. But the project has been put on hold indefinitely because of Dino.

Now Osmeña knows what it is like to be the subject of revenge himself.

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