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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Editorials: Guardo’s congressional dream
If there is anything wrong with the formal announcement of Jonathan Guardo to run against Rep. Antonio Cuenco for the congressional post in Cebu City’s south district, it should be the timing.
Guardo, chairman of the Cebu Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (CebuSOC), is in the middle of a verbal war with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña on how funds for Cebu’s hosting of the games were spent.
Thus, before he announced his political plan, he should have first come up with a full accounting of the CebuSOC funds and neutralized insinuations of irregularities, which is the undertone of Osmeña’s verbal jabs at him.
By prematurely announcing his intention, Guardo therefore became vulnerable to accusations of deflecting the issue away from the funds controversy and opened himself up to more attacks from Osmeña and to the initial offensive from Cuenco’s camp.
It also tended to erase some of the goodwill he got for Cebu’s successful hosting of the Games, especially from well-meaning sectors who applaud good deeds but frown upon those acts done with hidden political intent.
There is no doubt that with Guardo’s background and resources, he can be considered a worthy opponent of Cuenco, this despite his being young and being still an unknown entity in the south district.
But before he should even begin to think about starting the machinery of his candidacy rolling, he should first hurdle the first test, and that is to clear his name from insinuations about the mishandling of CebuSOC funds.
He should realize that in this country, politics is mainly about public perception.
Raid on Albuera police station
With only six policemen (four of them eating supper) on duty at that time, there was little possibility the recent raid by New People’s Army rebels on the Albuera, Leyte police station would not be successful.
While reports that the attacking rebels numbered around 100 may be exaggerated, the fact remains that having six policemen on duty in a major town police facility is one sorry excuse for a defeat.
It would be interesting to see then how the police and the military in Cebu will respond to the Albuera raid, considering that many town police stations are similarly situated, not only in terms of lack of personnel and logistics, but also in overall readiness.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 10, 2006 issue)
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