#15 IN SURVEY. The Dec. 8-11 survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) showed that Cebu’s Sergio Osmeña III was included in the top 20 preferred candidates for senator in the 2019 elections.
Serge ran for reelection in the last election but finished #14, next only to Francis Tolentino (#13) and Leila de Lima (#12).
Now, more than a year before the next race, the survey (which SWS neither owns nor disowns and is probably commissioned), Serge ranks #15 with 20 percent in the respondents’ preference list.
There’s no one else from Cebu or the rest of the Visayas in the said SWS ranking. In the top 12 are mostly reelectionists and returnees, people who have recognizable names because they previously ran for the Senate. The fresh face in the political game is that of newspaper columnist and broadcaster Erwin Tulfo (#12, 26 percent, shared with Lito Lapid and JV Ejercito).
New names in the lower rung of the ladder are from the local government sector: Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista and former Manila vice mayor Isko Moreno.
Hobbled campaign
MATTER OF HEALTH. Serge Osmeña was probably hobbled in the 2016 campaign by his health. A safe answer on what his plan would be in 2019 is “it will depend on his health,” whether he could go through the rigor of the campaign.
Despite the new and high technology on spreading election propaganda and his political capital (as an Osmeña and a sterling record in the Senate), Serge needs to go out there on the campaign trail. The competition in the last election apparently worked harder than Serge and others who lost.
Change in landscape
NO-EL? But conditions could be different. There might be no elections next year. Or the Senate would be abolished under the new government. Or the next election for senators under a new Constitution would be regional.
Time and Serge Osmeña’s health would be powerful influence on his becoming senator again.
Meantime, who’d be the next Cebuano/s to walk on the Senate corridor? Former governor now House Deputy Speaker Gwen Garcia? Any other senatorial timber out there, maybe Mayor Tomas Osmeña?
Roaches at city hall
OK-OK. When the talk of rats and cockroaches at Cebu City Hall came up, a Team Rama councilor couldn’t resist the quip: “OK-OK? Osmeña Kami?” Mayor Tomas himself loves to call his pet peeves “OK-OK.”
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(bzzzzz@sunstar.com.ph or paseares@gmail.com)