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Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Editorial: Maintaining BO-PK unity
Despite Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s recent move that seemed to affect Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera’s position in City Hall’s Personnel Selection Board (PSB), it is still too early to say that the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) is breaking up.
Pesquera, an independent-minded (or pesky, if you will) BO-PK councilor, chaired the PSB until Osmeña issued the memo that no board meeting should be held without him. The move was seen as the mayor’s attempt to ease her out of the PSB.
The councilor, however, stamped out the speculations saying the mayor is only interested in certain matters that the PSB is tackling. Which is another way of insisting there is as yet nothing wrong with her relationship with Osmeña.
And Pesquera can be granted the benefit of the doubt. For proof of any crack in her relationship with the mayor needs more than just a vague memo—a clear-cut order easing her out of the PSB and her other positions would have been it.
Besides, the mayor going after Pesquera won’t mean the party will break up. Easing out a councilor will be a minor development. With the other BO-PK members’ fear of the mayor, it is doubtful whether she can get enough sympathy to break the party.
But there is a more significant message to the mayor’s memo—which is to remind Pesquera, the other BO-PK councilors and even Vice Mayor Michael Rama, who has been speaking his mind lately, where real power resides.
This is a point that majority of the BO-PK has recognized, thus their wimpish stance in many controversial issues hitting City Hall, but which others like Pesquera and Rama may have not. That memo can be considered a gentle nudge.
Earlier, Rama, when asked whether their stance would split the BO-PK, said that it all depends on the mayor. Meaning, if he takes the show of independence personally and not consider it as a product of a democratic process, then breakup is possible.
What the vice mayor did not say is that party “unity” also depends on him and other like-minded BO-PK members. Meaning, Rama and the others can insist on their independence, and serve public good, or they can back off, and maintain party “unity.”
Getting old
Sen. John “Sonny” Osmeña has admitted old age is catching up on him and the other prominent members of the clan like former Cebu governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña and even the relatively young Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Sonny and Tomas are now exercising to control hypertension and, in the case of the former, diabetes. Lito’s health was once an issue in the run-up to the 1998 presidential elections.
This means that if the clan wants to continue to have a grip of politics in the province, it should now start looking for a new generation of Osmeñas. But the political landscape, at least for now, is empty—save for Sonny’s son, John-John.
One can take this positively or negatively.
For those who believe in the Osmeña style of leadership, then they will have to push the elder Osmeñas to egg on the younger ones, who are shying away from politics, to start getting active in elections.
Those who are against the practice of political dynasty, however, will consider this a welcome development.
(February 11, 2003 issue)
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