Osmeña’s bet

Remember the joke about a man who listed as one of his new year’s resolutions the vow to stop gambling and when questioned about his resolve to make good his resolution said he was willing to bet on it? There are many jokes about gambling, and we can add there Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña betting his P40,000 to Barug Team Rama’s P10,000 that the latter won’t choose former mayor Michael Rama as its candidate for mayor in next year’s polls.

The mayor’s betting joke was an offshoot of his claim in a Facebook post early on that a heated debate erupted in the office of Barug Team Rama Councilor Joel Garganera, stemming from the supposed refusal by opposition councilors to support the candidacy for mayor next year of a man that the Facebook post did not name but which obviously referred to former mayor and party leader Michael Rama.

The joke reflects the current state of Cebu City politics and the preparation being made by both camps. It was also an indirect way of poking fun at the opposition, which apparently is being riven by the publicly unstated plan of its two leaders, Rama and Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella, to run for mayor next year. Rama and Labella both running against Osmeña would pave the way for the latter’s reelection.

Garganera’s claim that his group is in the process of looking for the best candidate for mayor next is a sugar-coated admission that Barug Team Rama is split for now. And his comparing his party’s candidate selection process to that of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan, which is a one-man decision process, is what we Cebuano’s would call merely pa-consuelo. The truth is, Barug Team Rama has a problem, a serious one.

Choosing who would be the party’s official candidate is difficult because there is no assurance that the one shunned would abide by it. Or conversely, that the two wannabes and their supporters would listen to the decision of the majority. Which makes Osmeña’s claim that a heated debate erupted in Garganera’s office probably true.