Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Malilong: Tommy should relax By Frank Malilong Jr. The Other Side
MAYOR Tommy Osmeña has reason to be bothered by reports that former Cebu first district congressman Jose “Do-dong” Gullas is running against him in May. When Tommy came home from exile in the US in 1986, he asked Dodong to be his runningmate but was politely refused.
Tommy’s offer was recognition not only of Dodong’s moral and technical competence to hold public office but also of the considerable drawing power of the Gullas name, not just in the old third (now the first) congressional district but also in Cebu City where the family-owned University of the Visayas is located.
But relax, Tom. I do not think Dodong will ever go back to politics, much less aspire to take over your throne and its attendant headaches. Somebody is trying to scare you and you’re playing into his hands. Your hatred towards Dodong’s brother, Eddie, is public knowledge, but how could you have made such idiotic claim about the Gullases conspiring to annex Cebu City to Talisay City if you haven’t been affected by the scuttlebutt about Dodong’s candidacy? And what made it imperative for you to start distributing health cards, which you openly admit, is an act of politicking?
A little bit of history: long before Tommy approached Dodong with an offer to be his vice mayor, some people had already tried to persuade him (Dodong) to aspire for the city’s top post. This was during the time of Ferdinand Marcos. Before the move could snowball, however, Doña Pining got wind of it and told her son about her wish to have only one politician in the family.
Doña Pining is now dead but I don’t think the brothers will dishonor their mother’s wish. The year 2001 was an exception because Talisay City needed a steady hand to guide her during her infancy and Eddiegul, who was no longer eligible for reelection, at the same time wanted somebody he knew would not attempt to disrupt his program for the district to fill in for him in the meantime.
But try as he did to fill his brother’s shoes, Dodong knew that politics was not his cup of tea. He disliked the frequent travels to Manila and worried about how the school would run with neither him nor Eddiegul having enough time to personally attend to day-to-day affairs.
So when his term ended in 2004, Dodong welcomed the relief and plunged back to his first love, which is education. I no longer teach in the university but I am told that he is in his elements again, exuding the same passion and energy of the 35-year-old financial vice president whom I met in my freshman year.
By the way, Dodong has a trait that Tommy should worry about, if the former defies the odds and runs for mayor. He is segurista. He does not leave anything to chance, including the minutest detail. He will be a very tough opponent.
But if I know him enough (and I think I know the brothers well, having had the pleasure of working with them for more than 20 years), Dodong will continue to stay out of politics. He and his siblings know how their mother (and father) loved them and they will do everything to respect their parents’ wish and honor their memory.
But if Tommy continues to rave and rant against them and childishly accuse them of such a silly idea as plotting to make Cebu City a barangay of Talisay, that might justify their making another exception, which I’m sure, Doña Pining would have been quick to indorse. In which event, Tommy will have quite a fight in his hands.
