NOT wanting to leave behind her duties, Cebu City Acting Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña moved the annual medical checkup of Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña from this month to August instead.

Margot assured that Tomas is in good shape. She received a text message last week asking if it was true that the mayor-elect was declined by an airline to board his flight bound for Bacolod because he was sick.

“Mga text-text ba nga he’s in the ICU. He was in Bacolod nga. He is still the administrator of his mom’s estate,” she said.

Tomas, who was diagnosed with urinary bladder cancer in 2008, underwent treatment and operation at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Waiting

Margot recalled the doctors took out Tomas’ bladder, prostate and 42 lymph nodes and that they had to stay in the center for eight months to wait for the doctors’ assessments.

“And you know, you’re waiting. It takes about 10 days for them to assess. The doctor told me, ‘everything is negative.’ It’s a miracle,” she said.

Since the operation, the mayor-elect was requested to go back to Houston for a medical check up every three months for a year which eventually turned into every after six months.

It was only in April last year that the appointments were rescheduled to an annual check up.

“That’s why we kept on coming back (to Houston). Aside from its being tiring, it’s also expensive,” Margot said.

The mayor-elect’s doctors in Houston already gave their approval for the rescheduling of Tomas’ medical checkup.

The acting mayor said Tomas undergoes all the tests before he meets with his surgeon and oncologist.

“But, they just said, ‘We don’t know what to tell you also. He’s perfect. There’s nothing we see,’” she said.

Margot said the text messages on Tomas being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit is the same with the rumors spreading on social media about the mayor-elect having an illegitimate child.

“It’s the same, like on Facebook that he has a 23-year-old daughter. So I said, ‘Tom can I adopt her?’ I mean you can’t take these things seriously. I know naman what’s the truth. I cannot give them the satisfaction of making me miserable,” she said.

With the mayor-elect out of the country for his medication on August, suspended vice mayor-elect Edgardo Labella will assume office as acting mayor until Tomas returns.

“We’ll be gone in 10 days only. 10 days ra. Just go there, have his checkup and come back. Tiring but that’s the way,” Margot said.