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Friday, October 10, 2003
Glo clams up on polls
By Karen M. Flores
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
PRESIDENT Arroyo said that even with her announcement about running next year, it is “still not time for politics,” even in the local level.
In a press conference during her visit to Cebu yesterday, Arroyo said she was constrained to make her intentions known about next year’s elections because “the creditors, the business community and even the buyers of the National Transmission Corp. wanted some certainty.”
“But having said that, I am back at work so it is not yet time to attend to political matters,” Arroyo told reporters after speaking before urban poor groups at the Cebu City Sports Center.
She further said that “party procedures and committees” will address such concerns as disputes among members of the local Lakas party and the determination of the standard-bearer in Cebu.
But even with this statement, local officials and political leaders were abuzz with speculations and busy taking questions from the media on possible defections to the administration party during the lunch they shared with the President at the Waterfront Hotel in Mactan.
Mayors, congressmen and barangay officials all said they were hesitant to talk politics because of Arroyo’s statement earlier in the press conference and because many officials there were not Lakas members.
During lunch, Arroyo shared a table with Gov. Pablo Garcia who sat to her left, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to her right, Vice Gov. John Gregory “John-john” Osmeña and Agriculture Undersecretary Celestino “Junie” Martinez Jr. who sat across from her.
John-john later told reporters that he is hinging his gubernatorial bid on K-God, the group of Cebu Reps. Simeon Kintanar (2nd district) and Ace Durano (5th district) and City Mayors Eduardo Gullas (Talisay) and Thadeo Ouano (Mandaue).
His choice of a runningmate would depend on them.
He already ruled out Joy Ouano, the president of Mandaue’s Association of Barangay Councils who is Mayor Ouano’s sister, because she and her father, former mayor Alfredo “Pedong” Ouano, already turned down the slot.
The names of Bogo Mayor Celestino “Tining” Martinez III, president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Cebu, and Samboan Mayor Peter John Calderon were brought up during John-john’s talk with reporters and the vice governor said, “at this point, nothing is beyond conceivability.”
John-john said he will claim as his bailiwick Cebu’s first and third districts. He recently asked that his voter’s records be transferred from Pinamungajan town in the third district to Carcar in the first.
He remains a member of the Nacionalist People’s Coalition (NPC), however.
For his part, Undersecretary Martinez yesterday proposed a survey and a consultation of all of Cebu mayors with Lakas as well as those who intend to join the ruling party to determine who the administration candidate for governor here should be.
Martinez is also eyeing the gubernatorial post.
The governor, meanwhile, earlier said his daughter Gwendolyn may also run if the party asks her to.
(October 10, 2003 issue)
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