Sara as Mike’s last card
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña says his Talisay City counterpart, Eduardo Gullas, is a lousy mayor because he has failed to address the drug problem in his city. Isn’t that a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
If Talisay has Tangke, doesn’t Cebu City have Ermita? Or will Osmeña offer the excuse that his hands are tied because the barangay officials of Ermita are not his political allies?
Unlike Osmena, Gullas is not prone to making earthshaking pronouncements such as that he will give money to any policeman who can kill a drug lord or anyone who can kill a “ninja” cop. And because he values human life and believes in due process, Gullas does not gloat over the death of anyone, even a suspected drug lord, as Osmeña did when “Yawa” and “Jaguar” were killed in separate incidents in 2016.
Of course, Gullas did not embarrass himself by reversing course, as Osmeña did, on extrajudicial killings when the victims and supposedly intended victims were people who were close to him.
Gullas does not fight with his police. He does not take them to task when he does not like their style especially when they talk back to him. He works with them without sensationalizing anything.
He did not announce that Talisay has asked for reinforcements to be deployed in Tangke. The public came to know about it only after the additional policemen arrived. But even the police themselves acknowledged that the barangay captain of Tangke, a Gullas ally, had sought the additional police presence.
And by the way, Joavan Fernandez is in jail, has long been. As the father, former Talisay mayor Soc Fernandez can attest, Gullas had persistently urged Fernandez to rein in his wayward son.
Gullas has never been accused not even by his political enemies of being a drug coddler. He has his faults but tolerating the drugs trade or worse, making money from it, is not one of them.
Replying to Osmeña, Gullas said the Cebu City mayor should keep his house in order first before criticizing his neighbor’s. Valid point. As Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgar Labella observed yesterday, it is strange that an official, who has absolutely rejected the idea of a Mega Cebu, is now pretending to show concern for a neighboring city.
Former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is planning to join the Hugpong ng Pagbabago of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. That’s not surprising. Mike has been tirelessly working to get himself in the good graces of President Duterte, apparently not too successfully. Sara could be his last card.
Mike was one of those who joined Duterte at dinner at Mactan airbase last Tuesday as a guest of senatorial aspirant Bong Go. The others who were there were OPAV Mike Dino, Labella, businessman Ding Borja and radioman Choy Torralba. Mike had his picture taken with the president but afterwards left ahead of Dino and Labella.
Edgar said there was something that the president told him during their private conversation that made him proud and humbled. He however refused to divulge the details. If it’s any consolation to his political rivals, Duterte stopped short of raising his hand.