I HAVE known Mike Rama since law school when he was the star player (and the ladies’ crush ng bayan) of the intramural basketball games. After we both became lawyers, we played for the same IBP basketball team and were colleagues in the Young Lawyers Association of Cebu. We were very good friends.
We still are, I think. Every now and then he would call me on the phone and we would have long conversations, which by the way, is not unusual with Mike. He loves to talk. He flourishes in it.
Even if we were friends, I did not always agree with Mike. Neither did he with me, I’m sure. But except for that time at the Cebu City Sports Center oval when he falsely implied that I was spreading the gossip that he had cancer, which I resented, we never had any serious disagreements notwithstanding the many times I called him out in my column for his actuations as a public official.
Mike is a two-time mayor. When he won his first term, he was a protege of then outgoing Mayor Tommy Osmeña. His choice as Tommy’s successor did not sit well among Tommy’s other political allies and even Tommy’s sister Georgia. A petition was circulated opposing Mike’s anointment but Tommy stood pat reportedly because of a promise he made to Mike’s brother, Eddie, before the latter died.
It did not take long before Mike’s relationship with his benefactor soured. It was thus not surprising that they would square off in the next election. Mike defeated Tommy, which was no mean feat. Tommy has beaten off all previous challenges to his reign as Cebu City’s undisputed political kingpin.
They inevitably met in a rematch three years later. Hounded by many issues such as that he was a drug user, which Tommy exploited to the hilt, Mike lost. Unlike Tommy who graciously conceded when he lost, Mike did not acknowledge defeat, claiming that he was cheated. He filed an electoral protest against the advice of well-meaning friends. His PR machine churned out yarns that he was winning in the recount but as expected, the protest died, buried by the succeeding election.
In 2019, Mike wanted to run for mayor again, still against Tommy. But there was one particularly insurmountable hurdle: A very popular President who has accused him as early as in 2016 of being a drug protector. Mike many times sought to have his name cleared. President Rodrido Duterte was unconvinced. Mike reluctantly agreed to run for vice mayor under Edgar Labella, who was the President’s choice. He was making the supreme sacrifice, Mike kept reminding everyone, in order to exact revenge on his mentor-turned-tormentor Tommy.
They both won, Edgar as mayor and Mike as vice mayor. The lines couldn’t have been clearer for anyone to see.
But Mike is not anyone. He is, to follow colleague Bong Wenceslao’s analogy, a mayor trapped in a vice mayor’s body. No vice mayor in the history of Cebu City, including Mike himself, has behaved the same way he has, publicly disputing Edgar’s stand on many issues instead of taking it up directly with the mayor who is his party-mate.
Edgar has tolerated him to avoid any distraction and Mike saw this as a sign of weakness. In the only briefing on the Covid-19 threat that I attended, Mike acted as if he were the one who called it, deciding who should speak and who should not, publicly embarrassing Cebu City Medical Center Administrator Yvonne Feliciano in the process.
It is not a crime to harbor ambition for higher office. Mike should not be faulted for believing that he can be a better mayor. But that is precisely the point that he has missed: He can be but he is not yet the mayor.
We have a crisis. That is not by itself reason to not ask questions or make suggestions on how to address it. But Mike knows which part of City Hall, where Edgar continues to hold office, is. If he cannot go there because of the quarantine, he has the mayor’s number. Why doesn’t he take his concerns directly with him instead of through the media, thereby giving the impression that City Hall is a house divided at this crucial time?
Please, Mike. Act like the vice mayor and the teammate that you are to the mayor. Do not second-guess the mayor. Talk to him directly. This is the worst time to pick a quarrel.