Danao City Mayor Ramonito Durano has openly declared his family’s support for the candidacy of Bongbong Marcos. The endorsement will definitely help BBM’s bid even if the Duranos’ grip in the fifth district was seriously damaged in 2019 because the family still holds sway in Danao City.
But will it boost the candidacy of Ace Durano? The former tourism secretary faces a formidable opponent in incumbent Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, who has yet to lose an election, and his choice of presidential candidate will surely impact his chances of winning especially if, as widely believed, the governor also throws her support behind the son of the deposed strongman.
Their decision is not surprising, however. Indeed, as the Danao City mayor has pointed out, the Duranos and the Marcoses share a rich history of political alliance. I do not think there was ever any election where they went separate ways. Ramonito probably thinks it’s too late to chart a destiny separate from the Marcoses now.
Until Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and either jailed or chased away his political enemies, the only Cebuano political leader who stood up to him was Sergio Osmeña Jr., whose son Tommy is now carrying on the political tradition by casting his lot with the younger Marcos’ most serious threat to his bid to recapture Malacañang, Leni Robredo.
Tommy has found an unlikely ally in the campaign against Marcos in Panaghiusa’s Joey Daluz. They do not have the same presidential candidate, though. Daluz, a former Cebu City councilor and current chairman of the MCWD, is said to be leaning towards Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno.
Daluz’s mother, Inday Nita, was one of the most prominent figures in the struggle against Marcos’ martial law, so his refusal to support Marcos even as he campaigns for Sara Duterte is not surprising. His mother, who experienced being jailed and doused with water from the hose of a fire truck in the course of the Cebuanos’ struggle for freedom from the dictatorship, would have turned in her grave if he did.
Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama also had relatives who opposed Marcos. The journalist Napoleon Rama, whom Marcos jailed with many other critics during the first few days of martial law, was Mike’s uncle. Another uncle, Osmundo, defeated the Marcos candidate for governor, Beatriz Durano, in 1971 but was ousted from office by the dictator. Mike himself told me that he joined the anti-Marcos rallies in Manila.
He is now for Marcos. Politics does breed strange bedfellows. Will it benefit his campaign or will it earn more votes for his opponent, Tommy’s wife Margot?
Cebu used to be the hotbed of anti-Marcos sentiment in the country. Maybe, it is not so now?