The Tomas I saw

Iused to cover for radio station dyLA the Cebu City Hall beat when Tomas Osmeña was a young mayor. That was in the early ‘90s. We used to follow him in some activities that he guested in and wait until he would get inebriated. My usual “partner in crime” at that time was Cris Ligan, who was with dyRC. We would then approach the mayor, knowing he would already be animated and give us a “noholds-barred” interview featuring verbal assaults against his political rivals.

But what I remember most in my days as a reporter was the birthday party a year or two later of then city councilor Ernesto Elizondo. It was held, if I remember it right, in Elizondo’s residence in Banawa.

When I arrived there, then city councilor (I forgot if he was already the vice mayor at that time) Michael Rama was “busy” dancing with fellow councilor Jocelyn Pesquera. On one side of the darkened living room was Osmeña, surrounded by some city councilors and guests, oblivious of the music and the two councilors dancing. Theirs wasn’t personal talk. They were talking about politics. That, I would say, was symbolic of the two leaders’ brand of leadership.

There is this saying, not fully true, that Cebuanos are so enamored with politics they eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I said this is not fully true because only few Cebuanos are like that—and Osmeña is obviously one of them. I would say his success as a politician is because he is so obsessed with politics he spends almost all of his time plotting his political moves. He won in the 2016 elections because his rival, Rama, was not as focused on the polls as him.

I remember my talk more than a year ago with former city councilor Noel Wenceslao, who bolted from the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) in 2014. Noel said that after leaving BOPK, an obscure pending case filed against him with the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas started moving. He suspected Osmeña was behind it. The move failed because instead of him being convicted, the case was dismissed.

I didn’t have a difficulty believing in Noel’s suspicion because of what I have seen as the “Osmeña character.” He must have spent some time finding ways to get even with the “erring” former BOPK councilors like he was obviously spending a lot of time finding ways to make forgettable Rama’s two terms as mayor.

I actually see his hand not only in the filing of the case against the sale of South Road Properties (SRP) lots in 2015 but also in such controversies as the failure for a time of Rama to get a city treasurer and a city police chief of his choice and, last year, the suspension of Rama and a number of city councilors that allowed Osmeña’s wife Margot to assume as acting mayor.

And it is not difficult to believe insinuations that he was behind the recent suspensions of Barangay Ermita chief Felicisimo Rupinta and his barangay councilors. Now he has filed a case against Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, asking the anti-graft office, which incidentally was the one that swiftly ordered the suspension of Rupinta, et al, to suspend him.

Indeed, in terms of political focus, no one can beat Osmeña.