Osmeña: “Binay Country” claim insults Cebuanos

CEBU, Philippines - Former Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña has strongly disagreed with Mayor Michael Rama’s claim that Cebu is a “Binay Country,” saying it is an affront to the Cebuanos.

Osmeña said Cebu belongs to the Cebuanos and his political rival does not have the right to give it away to anyone.

“Cebu City belongs to the Cebuanos. Mike Rama has no right to give Cebu City to anyone.  I think it is an insult to Cebuanos because they booed Binay and they still call it a Binay country? Baga’g nawong niya uy,” said Osmeña in a press conference yesterday.

    Rama declared Tuesday during the general assembly of One Cebu Party and United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) that Cebu is now a “Binay Country.”

Rama taunted the Liberal Party during his speech for claiming that Cebu is an LP bailiwick.“Noong araw ‘yon. Why? Survey will tell us that now in the winning level, even before One Cebu had been into this agreement, much more because Cebu City, we will stand and give our vote for VP Binay for president,” Rama said.

Rama added that the gathering of the One Cebu-UNA coalition shows that all districts in Cebu are well represented.

“With that, we will never run away from any fight. We are the red lion and we bring victory together with Winston Garcia and our Partido Panaghiusa, Team Rama, UNA in Cebu City,” Rama said.

But Osmeña said there was no factual basis to the claim. In fact, Binay lost over 500,000 votes to Mar Roxas in the 2010 elections.  Binay and Roxas ran for vice president at that time.

“Binay lost 500,000 votes the last time. The biggest victory of Mar is in Cebu. He got more votes than Binay.  Mar got a million votes here,” said Osmeña, an ally of the Liberal Party.

But in spite of it Osmeña refuses to claim that Cebu is a Roxas country.

Meanwhile, One Cebu gubernatorial candidate Winston Garcia is confident that Binay will win big in Cebu following the formal coalition of UNA and his political party. One Cebu has two incumbent congressmen — Gwendolyn Garcia (3rd district) and Benhur Salimbangon (4th district). — (FREEMAN)