Friday, October 10, 2008 Seares: Tomas and Sto. Niño By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
CONSIDER the apparent clashes of what Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, suffering from prostate cancer, said during the last three days before he and wife Margot flew to the US for surgery:
He's sure to return and serve the rest of his term, yet he doesn't know how long he'll be gone. He won't die prematurely as he's "too stubborn" for that, yet he'll leave his fate to Sto. Niño.
Said in the same breath, the statements don't actually collide with one another. Grit and humor don't shut out faith and resignation when the rapping on the door reminds how brief one's life can be.
As the mother of German writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe lay on her deathbed, a servant girl brought an invitation to a party. The old lady ordered her "to say that Frau Goethe is unable to come as she's busy dying at the moment."
Mayor Tomas' self-deprecating humor about being too strong-willed to yield to such inconvenience as dying tells the Cebu public that the man is far from having given up the fight.
Faith in Holy Child
Before Acting Mayor Michael Rama gets too comfortable on the mayor's chair, Mayor Tomas might barge in anytime and rescue City Hall reporters from Mike's weighty pronouncements on issues like uncollected garbage and street potholes.
But it's Tomas' talk about leaving his fate to Sto. Niño that might be seized on by political enemies: "What, this mayor who drove away Sto. Niño vendors, padlocked basilica gates, and threatened to abolish the Sinulog would now rest his future on the Holy Child?"
What anti-Tomasites don't know much about is Tomas' faith. In Tomas' own fashion of course.
