Friday, September 26, 2008 Malilong: No last laugh yet on Cuenco-Osmeña rift By Frank Malilong The Other Side
SOME barangay captains in the city’s south district want Rep. Tony Cuenco and Guadalupe village chief Jingjing Faelnar to reconcile. They could have done more than that if only they were not so scared of Mayor Tommy Osmeña.
Everybody knows that in the scheme of things in Cebu City-South, Faelnar is as inconsequential as a tiny dot in the firmament. The real stars around whom Faelnar and his colleagues revolve are Osmeña and Cuenco.
Make that more Osmeña than Cuenco. For while the barangay captains feel free to tell their congressman their wish, they’re not as comfortable doing it to the mayor. In fact, they’re scared stiff of him. That’s why they’re not directly asking the mayor to settle his differences with Cuenco; instead, they’re taking the circuitous route via Faelnar.
Prudence is still the better part of valor. Honed by years of ward politics, the barangay captains know only too well the lesson in the story of the elephants and the ant which is that when the giants collide, the pygmies must step aside if they didn’t want to get crushed.
In any event, the prospect of reconciliation between Osmeña and Cuenco does not appear bright as of the moment. The mayor looks down on the congressman as an unreliable ally; the latter sees the former as a bully. Of course, politics being the art of the unpredictable, rapprochement between the estranged allies is still possible.
Not that everyone’s looking forward to that. Totol Batuhan, the Sonny Osmeña protégé who came within a few thousand votes of bringing down the Osmeña-Cuenco stranglehold of the district, wrote to say that the demise of the political tandem is indeed a cause for celebration. “But only after the Cebuanos have finally buried the same can one have the last laugh,” he added.
Batuhan charged that it was during the 21 years of the Tommy-Tony tandem that the district slowly but surely deteriorated.
“Remember that it was this tandem that, in its heyday, brought to the city residents the infamous TNT health cards that all but trifled with the health of our underprivileged city-mates,” he said.
“Having gone through more than a billion pesos in pork barrel funds, all that the tandem can show for all that cash are the unsightly and rarely used concrete skywalks pock-marking the district, the remnants of several overpriced water purifying centers that have all been rendered unserviceable, and a few barangay service vehicles with their names brightly emblazoned on them.”
He also noted “that we are still in the thick of the wild-goose chase over the missing nangka seeds and the lost ruminants.” Tony may have the last laugh over Tommy, Batuhan, said but the residents should not forget that it was the tandem that presided over the district’s slow but sure ride to deterioration.
Also in my inbox is a comment from former student leader Zosimo “Boy” Quezon Jr. on Cuenco’s revival of the plan to divide Guadalupe into two barangays. It was this move that Osmeña used as reason to expel Cuenco from his “idea,” the Bando Osmena-Pundok Kauswagan.
Mayor Alvin (Garcia) was right after all, Quezon said, recalling how in 1997 Garcia approved the holding of a plebiscite on the issue of creating a Banawa-Englis barangay out of a portion of the territory of Guadalupe.
Quezon rued that after Osmeña, who succeeded Garcia, approved the budget for the plebiscite, the proposal suddenly died down. “Today the issue is hot again,” he said, adding that he hoped that it will not fall victim again to the “politics of the trapos.”
