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ARCHIVAL, minority floor leader of the City Council, who topped the 2019 and 2025 councilor elections in Cebu City north, now says “yes” to the draft for mayor because he feels he’s being accepted by voters.
He told "The Not So Late Show with Jason Monteclar" that he reached out to the people. His finding after “feeling the public pulse”: “nindot ilang pagdawat” in the north, “maayo” in the south.
BROADCASTER Jason Monteclar, in a video interview with Cebu City Council Floor Leader Nestor Archival Sr., released on Facebook Monday, August 5, 2024, has sought to clarify a few murky points swirling around BOPK’s decision to field the tandem of Archival and former mayor and ex-congressman Tomas Osmeña in the May 2025 elections.
Here are the more interesting takeaways from the interview, mostly on speculations that Archival squelched or tried to swat down:
[1] ARCHIVAL AS OSMEÑA’S 'PUPPET.' Wouldn’t the councilor be just a “puppet” (“Kiko-kiko”) of Osmeña if the former mayor and ex-congressman were elected with Archival in May 2025?
Archival said he asked Osmeña about it, and Tomas, who had directly ruled the city as mayor for 15 years, told Nestor to do his job and Tomas, as vice mayor, would just support him. “You’re the mayor, I’m the vice mayor. So do whatever you think is right. I’m just here to give the concept, the vision and you do the action,” Archival quoted Osmeña as saying.
Apparently, Archival thinks it won’t be a case of puppet and master because Tomas says it won’t be so. Something like the logic in the song (“When I Fall in Love”), “You love me because you told me so.”
The wannabe-mayor told Monteclar that Osmeña is “intelligent” and has ideas on how to run the city but listens to BOPK allies who may disagree with him. From what he sees in the way Tomas has led BOPK, the minority at the City Government in the last two terms, he will listen to Nestor. Wait, in an Archival-Osmeña administration, shouldn’t it be mayor Archival deciding after listening to vice mayor Osmeña and BOPK councilors elected with them?
[2] WHY THE VM BET ANNOUNCED HIS MAYOR. Odd (“unusual,” said Monteclar) that instead of the mayor-wannabe announcing his candidate for vice mayor, it was Tomas Osmeña who announced that he, as VM bet of BOPK, would have Nestor Archival as his mayor.
Archival told Monteclar that Tomas founded and has led BOPK for the last 36 years. Osmeña organized BOPK in 1998 and since then has been respected as party leader, “the father of the BOPK family.” Which explains who’s calling the shots and why Tomas announced the choice, not Nestor, but also supports suspicion that, despite the ranking, Archival’s major decisions as mayor must be approved by vice mayor Osmeña. Nothing wrong with that, or Archival so thinks, citing “consultation and transparency.”
[3] ARCHIVAL’S RELUCTANCE AND DISINTEREST, initially that is, in accepting the BOPK draft must be due to his belief that he could win easily as councilor and would need a ton of money to win the mayor’s post. In 2016, he ran for vice mayor, with Tomas as standard bearer, but he lost although Osmeña won. Now, it’s upside down. A radio broadcaster asked: “They’ll do better nga mag-rumble?”
Asked by Monteclar whether he’d run if Tomas wouldn’t run, Nestor said no, he’d prefer being reelected as councilor, a race he handily won and topped in 2019 and 2022.
[4] THE MATTER OF MONEY. After showing reluctance or disinterest in the prospect of running for mayor because he had no money, the councilor changed his answer on the night of July 31, 2024, cutely expressed in the word “YES” laced on the top of a birthday cake he gave to Tomas Osmeña, during a joint birthday party for Tomas and his wife Margot, who’s a former city councilor, ex-acting-mayor, and unsuccessful mayor-wannabe.
Does it mean Archival now has the money? asked Jason Monteclar.
No, Archival said, he still has no money (“no, wala!”). The councilor didn’t say how he’d wage the campaign without funds. Apparently, BOPK would rely, or hope for, a snowballing of public support, with which would come contributions to the campaign.
The BOPK plan may require an early campaign on the stretch to the first week in October for filing of COCs (certificates of candidacy). They’ll see what needs to be fixed, “we campaign to win,” Tomas told him, Archival said. The fixing, Tomas told Monteclar in a separate interview last March 4, may include change of plans and personalities. Meaning, the tandem may be revised or even abandoned, with the October deadline and, obviously, public response to the Archival-Osmeña duo as the arbitrary benchmark.
[5] WHAT SPARKED BOPK MOVE. Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos, former congressman Bebot Abellanosa, and Councilor Archival had visited and talked with Tomas, a two-hour meeting at his house in Guadalupe, which, Archival said, resulted in the decision to “solidify” their party and the plan for an Archival-Osmeña tandem.
The lesser BOPK leaders saw the preparations in rival parties (“mora’g nabiyaan na ta ani… we were alarmed”) and prodded Osmeña to act and save the more-than-three-decades-old party from disappearing and eventual extinction.
[6] “MGA BANGA MAN NANG NAA SA CITY COUNCIL… MOST OF THEM ARE KAWATAN” was a comment that “teased” the Monteclar interview but wasn’t tackled by either Archival or his interviewer. They didn’t talk about what was to be done to improve the quality of councilors in a possible Archival-Osmeña administration.
Archival summed up their tandem’s platform thus: for lives of Cebuanos to improve (“nga mosaka, dili manaog”).
[7] NOT TAKEN UP, obviously because of the limit on the interview’s time, was that BOPK had ruled the city for so long, during which it had ample time to make Cebu City residents’ lives better.
Tomas, who turned 76 last July 26, was city mayor from 1988 to 1995; then from 2001 to 2010; and finally from 2016 to 2019, or a total of 19 years. He served as congressman from 2010 to 2013. And he purportedly helped manage or rule the city behind the scenes when Alvin Garcia was mayor (1995-2001) and during Michael Rama’s first term (2010-2013), when the two mayors were still BOPKs or influenced by Osmeña’s leadership.
Will all the years of BOPK leadership and influence at City Hall, shouldn’t others be given a chance? An issue that may also be addressed to Mike Rama—who’ll be 70 this October 28—with two full terms as city mayor (not counting his extended acting mayor stints and his complete stretches as city councilor and vice mayor) and now on his third full term. He’s unencumbered yet by time limit, with remaining two full terms to seek.
Still, it may be said that both Tomas Osmeña and Mike Rama have been there and done that—or not done that.