I USED to cover the meetings of the Regional Development Council (RDC) when I was a reporter. The proceedings were mostly boring like most meetings on topics involving economics are. Politicians are represented in the RDC and they are mostly silent like they usually are when talk veers away from politics. The backbone of the RDC is the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and I remember a younger Nigel Paul Villarete at the center of things then.
There were conflicts, like when the former governor of Negros Oriental, the late Emilio Macias II, complained that most of the major projects approved by the RDC were for Cebu. That was around the time when former Cebu governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña made popular the term “Imperial Manila.” Macias was complaining about the Cebu variation in Central Visayas, the so-called “Imperial Cebu.”
Cebu City south district Rep. Raul del Mar was a young lawmaker when he first became a member of the RDC. After dominating his district’s politics for a couple of decades he now qualifies to be referred to as “veteran.” That SunStar photo showing him walking out of an RDC meeting was interesting not only because of his protest action but also because it showed an “old guard” outnumbered by youngsters.
What I am saying is that times have changed. I remember that the private sector representatives of the RDC when I covered their meetings were the same RDC private sector representatives years after I shifted from reporting to desk work. The colorful Cebuano term for that is “nanggungis.” The RDC now has the relatively young businessman and politician wannabe Glenn Soco and the young world renowned furniture manufacturer and designer Kenneth Cobonpue.
Reports seem to portray Soco and Cobonpue as the dominant voices in the RDC now. They must have looked to del Mar as more of upstarts challenging his veteran presence. But that was not the main reason for his walk out. Soco and Cobonpue pushed for funding feasibility studies first for the three underpass projects that del Mar endorsed. Del Mar had wanted funding approved for the actual construction.
This did not sit well with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who essentially called Soco and Cobonpue upstarts but in a circuitous way. “They’re not helping anything. Those guys don’t know anything. They have bad intentions and they have no competence, period,” Osmeña said.
Osmeña, though, may not have considered this conflict as stemming from a difference in principles. He has long memory especially on personal and political matters. He must not have forgotten that Soco was former governor Gwendolyn Garcia’s running mate in the 2010 elections and lost in the vice gubernatorial race to the late Gregorio Sanchez. Garcia is among the political rivals Osmeña hates.
Osmeña must have seen politics in the moves of Soco, like he must also have seen politics in every initiative done by Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, the businessman behind the Ciudad project that he scuttled. Incidentally, the 2019 election is fast approaching. And the year before an election is usually the time when projects are implemented “in aid of reelection.”