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Thursday, January 09, 2003
Tom denies talks he’ll run for VP under Roco slate
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday denied rumors he is running for vice president under former education secretary Raul Roco’s slate.
He admitted, though, that he is arranging a meeting with city mayors and Roco, also a former senator who wants to gain support in his bid for the presidency in 2004.
Osmeña, chairman of the League of Cities executive board, confirmed that several mayors, none of them from Cebu, already expressed their willingness to meet with Roco, who is doing well in the surveys.
“Most of them said yes. He’s a strong candidate despite the fact that he has no political machinery. We could give him a little machinery,” Osmeña told reporters yesterday.
However, he stressed he is “still committed to the President” at this point so he has not pledged any support to Roco, whom he said might be President Arroyo’s candidate.
“I’m not willing to go that far at this point,” Osmeña said, adding he only agreed to help Roco since the presidential hopeful was the only one who approached him so far.
One thing for sure, though, is that he would not like to see a movie actor as president, Osmeña said.
But apart from consulting his political allies here, the mayor said he will also consider who the Cebuanos want as leader.
President Arroyo surprised the nation last Dec. 30 when she announced that she is not running in 2004.
Osmeña, who won the Local Government Leadership Award as one of the country’s two best mayors, also dispelled rumors that Roco asked him to be his runningmate.
“That was not discussed. I’m not interested…It’s not my ambition (to get a post in the National Government). It never has been,” he said.
“I don’t even like to play a major role in the National Government. I don’t like to live in Manila,” the mayor said further.
If he wanted to, he would have grabbed the opportunity when he decided not to seek reelection as mayor in 1995 and instead asked then president Fidel Ramos to place him in a job of his choice.
Osmeña confirmed that aside from Roco, he also met with former defense secretary Renato de Villa and former Cebu governor Lito Osmeña in Manila.
Like him, Lito and de Villa also feel that “there seems to be a strong attempt to amend the Constitution.”
(January 9, 2003 issue)
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