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Monday, March 29, 2004
Tom ‘too busy’ to meet with FPJ; Margot entertains Poe
A POLITICAL gathering in the mountain barangay kept Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña from meeting opposition presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) last Saturday.
Osmeña said yesterday that Poe wanted to pay him a courtesy call at his residence in Barangay Guada-lupe but he was too busy to accommodate the movie actor.
His wife Margot, however, was able to have a “social meeting” with Poe during a lunch hosted by the mayor’s brother, Sen. Serge Osmeña III, at the Café Laguna restaurant in Cebu Business Park yesterday.
The mayor explained he was not avoiding Poe but his dialogue in Barangay Buot-Taop had been scheduled.
He also had to attend the graduation ceremony at a public school in Barangay Adlawan later that day.
“FPJ wanted to pay a courtesy call to me in the house and I said no problem, except that I’m going to be in Buot-Taup so wala gyud siya nakaari. I said I’m not avoiding him its just that my schedule was already set,” he said in the interview.
He said that if his schedule was not too hectic, he would not mind having Poe in his house because he doesn’t want to be rude.
In a separate interview, former mayor Alvin Garcia said Osmeña’s statement is “a pure and simple lie.”
He said the mayor is using his brother, a supporter of the opposition, to make Poe’s Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) accessible.
“Clearly, what he said is a tall story. Nangilad lang siya. They are already panicking that is why they used Serge to manipulate the situation. The President should know that they are creating a scenario for them to have access to FPJ (He’s fooling us),” Garcia told Sun.Star.
Osmeña also accepted Garcia’s challenge to a debate as long as Garcia will not be the one to choose all the issues they will debate on.
Garcia of the opposition party Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Kusug) wanted to discuss the issues on unjust taxes, graft and corruption, peace and order, and performance.
Osmeña said, though, that a debate is no longer necessary because the people already know what he has accomplished and what Garcia’s achievements were in his two terms as mayor.
“Alvin is trying to avoid the issues. Basta the people can see unsay iyang nahimo, these people can think for themselves, they are not dumb. He was not able to do anything, he’s all talk,” the mayor said.
In the same interview, Osmeña said he is not impressed with the crowd who showed up for the KNP and Kusug proclamation rally at the Cebu City Sports Center last Saturday night.
He said that with an estimated crowd of only 8,000 to 12,000, the number of people who attended was too small, considering there were movie and television personalities, including Poe, a famous movie actor.
The people went there for the actors and actresses and not for Garcia and the rest of the Kusug slate, Osmeña said.
“I’m not impressed. If you remove Alvin and you just put all the movie stars on the stage, they should even get more than that because it was for free. There were people there last night but I was expecting 40,000 to 50,000 with all the movie stars,” the mayor said. LCR
(March 29, 2004 issue)
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