Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Malilong: Mayor Osmeña’s anointed By Frank Malilong The Other Side
NOW it’s official. Or almost, anyway. Mike Rama will be Tommy Osmeña’s anointed in 2010. And he will have Joy Young as running mate.
Mike now has two Joys, said a wag. There’s a third one that he will most probably have as well, too: the (J)oy of being addressed as the Honorable Mayor of Cebu City. With Tommy O’s endorsement, that could be a matter of “when,” not “if.”
Let’s face it. The worst that can be said about the state of Osmeña’s political clout in Cebu City is that he is almost unbeatable. And that is already being generous to his opponents.
Mary Ann de los Santos, who waged a valiant, if failed, battle against Osmeña in 2007 was right in pointing out that she was able to gather 120,000 votes despite her inadequate preparation and meager resources. Note, however, that Tommy O still thrashed Mary Ann thoroughly in that election.
The mayor is the kind who evokes strong emotions, for or against. There are people who hate Osmeña and his guts and their number is growing but I seriously doubt whether they have reached that point where they could seriously threaten his political stranglehold of the Queen City of the South.
But will he campaign for Mike and Joy as hard as when he was himself the candidate? There is no doubt that he will, the subtle hints of retirement notwithstanding. He has a very strong reason for doing so and it goes by three letters: SRP.
The South Road Properties is Osmena’s pet. He wants it to be his legacy to the city. Despite the dire prognostications from critics, there is no way that the SRP will remain a white elephant. It is going to bear fruits soon and Osmeña will make sure that when it does, the city is in friendly hands.
His choice of Rama is therefore a testament to his trust in his vice mayor. I think that such trust is well deserved. Throughout the many years that he worked with Osmeña, Mike contented in playing second fiddle, never attempting to upstage the senior partner.
Mike earned ridicule for his stance from some quarters, some of whom called him spineless and a wimp. But he bore the brickbats with patience and it looks like he’s going to have the last laugh. The day following last year’s elections, I heard Tommy speaking favorably about his vice mayor who, he said, will succeed him when his term ended. Osmeña’s announcement showed that he is keeping his word.
The choice of Young as Mike’s running mate is a brilliant stroke. Joy still has to lose an election, the only blot, if you call it that, in his career being the Supreme Court decision that stripped him of the mandate that the people overwhelmingly gave him as their party-list congressman.
And, as Osmena took pains to emphasize, Joy is a seasoned administrator. When not busy presiding over sessions of the city council, Young could assist Mike in handling the day-to-day affairs of the city government.
But most of all, Young’s asset is that he enjoys Osmeña’s complete trust. Name three people who the mayor can comfortably confide to and Young is one of them. Joy will therefore not only be Mike’s partner; he is also Tommy’s insurance.
The elections are still two years away but Tommy has already drawn the line. It’s interesting to see how the opposition responds.
