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Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Malilong: Antidote to Tom’s sting
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
I never got the scoop that Margot Osmeña promised. Either she and her husband, the Cebu City mayor, never really planned for another child or they were just too busy to have one. And now, to borrow her words, “the factory is closed.”
If I were made to pick one and only one reason that one cannot totally dislike Tommy, I would choose, without hesitation, Margot. She is the perfect antidote to the sting of his stubborn, sometimes high-handed, nature. The wonder of it all is that she does it without inviting attention to herself.
Unlike the wives of other politicians, she doesn’t try to outshine Tommy. She stays in the sideline except on matters that involve the streetchildren, whose cause she advocates passionately.
She is the moving spirit behind “Operation Second Chance,” a project that aims to rehabilitate minor offenders. She founded it in 1994 “when Tommy wasn’t the mayor,” with the P400,000 from the late Sen. Raul Roco as seed money.
It was this advocacy of children’s causes that brought the Cebu City first lady to the regional convention of lawyers last week. I spoke with her while she was waiting for her part of the program and, in the course of our conversation, caught a glimpse of how the wife of one of the country’s more controversial executives copes with pressure.
It was two days after her husband’s cousin, former senator John Osmeña, had called Tommy “buang,” who should run to the basement of the Makati Medical Center where the mental patients are housed, instead of for the Senate. The remarks were made during a television interview.
The cousins had been feuding for some time now, trading insults along the way. Their guns (okay, their mouths) had been kept silent during most of latter part of last year and early this year, however, and many thought the two had finally found a way to peacefully co-exist with each other.
Then came Sonny with all cylinders blazing, escalating their word war to another level by questioning Tommy’s sanity.
And it hurt Margot. “My husband may be ‘buang’,” she said with rare vehemence “but he is a happy one.” She noted that Tommy and Sonny bear the same genes and share the same last name, but “Tommy has a caring family who loves and supports him.” I asked her if her comments were off the record and she answered no, I can write about it.
She disclosed that it was Tommy who told her about Sonny’s remarks, which were made during a television interview. He was not angry, she said; Tommy had always been tolerant of criticism.
I found the last one hard to believe, knowing how the mayor had, on a number of occasions, vented his wrath on his critics. But Margot said it with the innocence of one who speaks the truth so I left it at that.
There must be something beyond the pugnacious Tommy Osmeña that the public sees which only his wife knows.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 2, 2006 issue)
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