THE verbal brawl between City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and House Speaker Prospero Nograles is heating up. Just like the Pacquiao-Cotto fight, we are presently witnessing rehearsals of what is going to happen in the ring. The real slam-bang is when both will mount the campaign stage.

There we will see who will be able to dish out the punch on the solar plexus. Thereafter the madlang tao will judge who between the two they will choose as leader of the city. The judgment day will be on May 10. By then we will know who the true leader or leaders this city deserve.

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In retrospect, we Dabawenyos never really had the opportunity to cast our real votes. For several elections now, Duterte and Nograles never had genuine adversaries to speak of. They entered into a dubious pact called "Unity Ticket" and both sashayed into victory without veritable opponents. There were jokers alright who joined the fray, but they all landed in the kangkungan.

Even then, it will be interesting to check as to how the perceived candidates, who are in the running today, performed in the last elections. Mayor Duterte, Vice Mayor Inday Sara and Speaker Nograles ran virtually unopposed. Councilor Mabel Sunga along with the other candidates in the 1st district may have had no credible opponents to speak of but just the same they were running against each other on who's going to top the council slate. The result of the election was very revealing. Duterte got the biggest volume of votes, followed by Inday Sara. Mabel, who was running against seven others, had more votes than Nogie who had no contender.

These days, Nogie and Duterte are irreconcilable. This is good for the city electorate as we can exercise good judgment and we will be able to settle once and for all who is deserving to be called the leader of the city dubbed as the most livable and most competitive.

By the way, it is not the city officialdom who said that, it's Asia Week and Asian Institute of Management who did.

As I said, the remake of a unity ticket in Davao City is over. No more. So much vile words, plotting, back-stabbing, undermining and acts of treachery had happened that any attempt to resurrect the unity will be viewed as the devil's incarnate. It is better this way. Let the protagonists run so that we can get over with the divisiveness that rend our people apart.

There are people who allow their selves to be used as tools for dubious machinations to deter perceived enemies from expressing their views or to help bets of their choice. We see this these days in the news, on TV, and every other media sought by a wily politician. This will not wash. Your day will come and you will be unmasked.

The problem with some politicians and their lapdogs is that they think that those who see through their diabolical schemes can be shocked to submission and silence. The vainglorious exercise of power has started to materialize around us. I know of one who was threatened because of mere association and friendship with a candidate. I think these acts of harassments will continue until judgment day. We just have to endure these for surely this too will come to pass.