GMA continues her lead in Cebu!

As of last Saturday, the Namfrel count showed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) leading the presidential derby with 1,598,165 votes while Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) had 1,548,603. Ping Lacson came out third with 513,023, followed by Bro. Eddie Villanueva with 272,124 while Raul Roco came last with 269,006. That GMA came out strong in the Visayas, especially in Cebu, was validated by my motorcycle friends during our dirt bike sorties right into the mountain fastness of Cebu weeks before Election Day.

When I asked a farmer in Mantalongon, Dalaguete why they were not voting for FPJ despite his popularity, his response was pure logic — that they don’t have moviehouses in the far-flung areas of Cebu and no television back at the height of FPJ’s popularity. Any FPJ movie they may have seen was any of his old movies shown on TV. While to them, GMA was quite visible in the countryside with so many road workers wearing GMA T-shirts.

Anyway, last Friday’s partial official results of the Comelec reported by The Freeman on the elections in Cebu had President Arroyo garnering 316,229 votes, while FPJ got 30,107. He’s followed by Raul Roco who got 11,364 while Ping Lacson garnered 10,178 and Bro. Eddie Villanueva got 8,107 votes. What can I say, but that I’m proud of the Cebuano voter’s political maturity for voting for the right person to be president.

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As for the gubernatorial race, we mentioned last Friday that it was Gwen Garcia, Gov. Pablo Garcia’s daughter, who had a slight lead over former Agriculture Undersecretary Celestino Martinez Jr. Well, in the C-Cimpel count as of Saturday, the winds of fortune seem to have shifted when Martinez was up with 184,671 votes over Gwen Garcia’s 183,406, while Vice Gov. John-John Garcia was in third place with only 99,202. Of course, now charges of election rigging are on between the Garcia and Martinez camps.

Meanwhile, in the vice gubernatorial race, Martinez’s running mate, engineer Greg Sanchez, had a comfortable lead with 169,434 votes over comedian Julian "Teban" Daan who got 127,473 votes. Ade Sitoy, running mate of John-John Osmeña got 101,244 votes as of press time. Hopefully, by Wednesday, we can report the final count of the provincial polls.

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As we reported last Friday, elections in Cebu City were quite dramatic with the 16-year-old Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) party of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña totally routing the Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Kusug) party of former mayor Alvin Garcia in what has been dubbed the "Otso-Otso" straight ticket win by the BO-PK.

If you didn’t know, Alvin Garcia was once Tommy Osmeña’s right-hand man way back in the 1988 elections. When Osmeña did not ran for a third term, Garcia became mayor in his own right… getting re-elected to a second term. But when their relationship soured, he created his own Kusug political party to do battle with what was left of the BO-PK. He lost his re-election bid in the 2001 elections, but four of his loyal partymates won as councilors.

Today, not a single Kusug councilor was elected in either the North or South District of Cebu City. As a very disappointed Kusug bet councilor Danilo Fernan of the North District quipped, "Kusug is a dying party," and he made no secret of his intentions to join the BO-PK if he is invited.

What’s the BO-PK’s secret? Performance. Indeed, during the first term of Mayor Osmeña, he led the widening of many of Cebu City’s major but extremely narrow avenues and streets. Right before the elections, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) inaugurated the South Coastal Road along the South Reclamation Project (SRP) which starts in Cebu City’s Port Area and ends near the Seaview Subdivision in Talisay City, cutting travel time to the south by as much as 45 minutes!

Why was the Kusug party totally vanquished in this election? I figure that the Cebuanos got sick and tired of the old issues, which Alvin Garcia brought up in this campaign, the very same issues they used in the previous elections. However, one new issue that Garcia brought up was his claim that the South Reclamation Project (SRP) was his project, not Tommy Osmeña’s, something that many voters thought was way out of line simply because he didn’t make this claim in the 2001 elections.

Perhaps Garcia’s biggest miscalculation was his siding with opposition actor Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) when he knew too well that the Cebuano voters would totally reject FPJ, which is now showing in the results. In the end, the Cebuano voter rejected Garcia together with FPJ. If Alvin only stuck it out with GMA just like all the candidates in the gubernatorial race, perhaps he may have fared better.

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Remember the saying, "Strike while the iron is hot?" That’s exactly what Cebu Inc. should be doing now at this crucial moment in our political history where the President owes her presidency to the overwhelming support of Cebuano voters. That President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was feeling euphoric and talking about convening a constitutional convention (concon) as soon as possible is an opportunity we should grasp if we are to shift from our present unitary or centralized form of government to a federal system of government.

If you didn’t know, the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) is already studying this shift to a federal system and I’m sure all we need is a little more pushing. For instance, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (CCCII) wants to be the catalyst for this change when I talked with their president Robert Go. I just hope that they can issue a manifesto of support in the coming Business Month of June. I dare say that many people in the Visayas and Mindanao are fully behind the shift to a federal system, that is why they overwhelmingly voted for GMA!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.