[1] WAS HE KIDDING, BLUFFING? CONDITION FOR RESIGNING. Cebu City Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña could be kidding or bluffing, spicing up an otherwise bland discussion about the South Road Properties (SRP) and the BRT project. Or he could, as most politicians manage a promise, be forgetful or dismissive, explaining it as a passionate outburst.
The specific condition: If the City Council Committees on Budget and Finance and Transportation would endorse the project “as is.”
Which means, if the two committees will approve (1) the use of the City-owned SRP lots for bus terminals and stations and (2) the retention of the revised route, from Il Corso to Ayala (“from mall to mall”), instead of the original Bulacao-to-Talamban run.
[2] PEG ON TIME: “IMMEDIATELY,” NOT "FORTHWITH.” Adding to the apparent seriousness of VM Tomas’s threat is the peg on time: He will resign “immediately.”
Not “forthwith” -- which the Supreme Court this week defined as “within a reasonable time” – but “immediately” or “right away.”
[3] MULTIPLE TERMS ATTEST TO RESPECT FOR OATH OF SERVICE. Tomas Osmeña had served as city mayor for 20 years (1987-1995, 2001-2010, 2016-2019) and as congressman for three years (2010-2013). He is now serving his term as city vice mayor, his 24th year total as an elective official.
He served the full length of the terms, except for some weeks on medical leave. His record attests to fidelity to the oath of service.
Unlike his dad, Sergio “Serging” Osmeña Jr. who had the habit or compulsion of staying for only a year or two in City Hall and leaving the mayorship to his vice mayor and running for higher office.
Serging was elected for three terms as mayor (across the period from 1955 to 1972) but didn’t sit at City Hall the whole length of each term. He was also Cebu governor (1951 to 1955) before he ran for city mayor.
[4] CLASHES WITH MAYOR ARCHIVAL ON MAJOR ISSUES may have contributed to VM Tomas’s frustration that prompted the threat to leave.
The differences of opinion and strategy between City Hall’s top leaders belonging to the same party, BOPK, have still to erupt in public.
Publicly, both party-mates are friendly and cordial.
Mayor Nestor Archival is described in a news headline as being “cool” to Tomas’s attacks, even “nicey-nicey” of a sort. Tomas spins the disputes as “necessary, healthy, and democratic debate.”
Yet the images the public sees inevitably spawn speculation of potential fireworks and eventual breakup.
People may not have seen sparks fly but the heat has been unmistakable. Mostly exuded by VM Osmeña who openly, often repeatedly, criticized Mayor Archival’s policy-making or policy-enforcing.
Such as on the choice of the city administrator, whom or whose performance Tomas calls “bogo,” meaning worse than poor or mediocre.
Or the handling of the Monterrazas liability, actual or potential, for the recurring floods in some areas of the city. Or the implementation of the joint venture on the Carbon market development.
The list has been growing.
[5] DEBATE ON ROLE OF PRESIDING OFFICER IN CITY COUNCIL, which Councilor Mikel Rama questioned last April 21, 2026, obviously angered VM Osmeña.
The young Rama assailed Tomas’s participation in the City Council debate, which allegedly made the presiding officer partisan, in violation of its internal rules of procedure.
Mikel Rama or any other member of the majority in the City Council has not even used yet against Tomas the legal opinion of DILG (#95, series of 2025, dated August 1, 2025).
The opinion, citing Local Government Code and Supreme Court decisions, said the vice mayor (or vice governor) cannot relinquish the function of presiding officer to do the work of a councilor (or board member).
VM Tomas, in order to be the “epitome of impartiality,” cannot exercise the full rights of a councilor.
Obviously, the City Council IRP provision, which allows the presiding officer to step down and argue for or against a resolution or ordinance, is illegal. The councilors can’t allow that anymore without risking a charge of “dereliction of duty” or a lawsuit over usurpation of functions.
“I am not a clerk. I won’t be shut up.” Thus declared Tomas at the Sanggunian last Tuesday. Sentiment that may have led to a place where Osmena no longer minds cutting short his VM term.
Realization of a diminished role – which apparently Tomas Osmena hadn’t entirely grasped before – must have drained some of his enthusiasm for the vice mayor/presiding officer job.
[6] TALK ON WHO’LL BE THE NEXT VM INDICATES EXIT OF TOMAS is not improbable, or at least is being taken seriously.
Under the rule on succession in the Local Government Code in case of resignation or removal of the vice mayor, the highest-ranking councilor shall automatically assume the position.
[7] NOT FULL-BLOWN IS THE FACTOR ON AGE AND HEALTH. VM Tomas has been candid on the state of his health. He has disclosed to the public his physical condition, including trips abroad for reported medical treatment of illnesses, including “urinary bladder cancer, complex hernia, aneurism, and impaired hearing.”
City constituents considered him healthy and physically fit to serve as vice mayor, thus, giving him 234,906 votes in the 2025 election, picking Tomas over ex-basketball star Dondon Hontiveros and pesky ex-MCWD board chief Joey Daluz.
Osmeña is 77, turning 78 this July 26. As a self-deprecating aged or aging person would put it: “I’m too old and sick for this sh*t.” The health factor cannot be ruled out as benefit from VM Tomas’s option to leave.
Tomas is not just the vice mayor. He’s doing councilor duties (obviously over the legal prohibition) and is actively engaged as “mayor of the night” as well.