Politics and the breaking up of Cebu province!

No less than his beloved eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, during his homily on Corpus Christi Sunday, chastised the proponents of breaking up the province of Cebu into four separate provinces, "Sug-Buak," as evil because the move only promotes the selfish political ambitions of the political lords in the second district ruled by Rep. Simeon Kintanar, the third district ruled by Rep. Antonio Yapha, and the fourth district ruled by Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez, all of whom are on their third and last terms as members of the House of Representatives.

Because these House members are at the end of their terms, and yet they still want to hang on to power, the only logical step for them is to break up the province of Cebu and turn the second district into Cebu del Sur, the third district into Cebu Occidental and the fourth district into Cebu del Norte. What will be left of Cebu province will be the first, fifth and sixth districts. No doubt, the Cardinal echoed the sentiments of his flock... that ordinary Cebuanos do not want Cebu to be broken up into several political fiefdoms, rather these last-termers are the ones who insist that this is what "their constituents" want for their districts!

Meanwhile, other suggestions have surfaced, foremost among them the creation instead of more congressional districts rather than turning them into provinces, something I consider a lesser evil. That means there would be double the number of congressman for those districts that would meet the requirements. This way, each new congressional district created would redound to the benefit of its constituents... for whatever pork barrel it can grab. I say that this is a lesser evil because creating a congressional district doesn’t entail big-ticket expenses like a new provincial capitol and all the employees to run a province.

If you want to know what we, who live in Cebu City, think of all this brouhaha, well, if you didn’t know, Cebu City was disenfranchised a long time ago, at the height of the Marcos dictatorship, because at that time, Durano could never win as governor of Cebu for as long as the residents of Cebu City could vote for the governor. Cebu City then (and you can say it still is) was controlled by Sen. Sergio "Serging" Osmena Jr., the political nemesis of then President Ferdinand E. Marcos in the presidential elections of 1969. But I don’t know why Durano didn’t run for governor after we were disenfranchised.

Today, many Cebu City voters still want to vote for their governor. Because of the break-Cebu or "Bu-ak Cebu" campaign, purportedly initiated by former Sen. John "Sonny" Osmeña, now his estranged cousin, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, has embarked on a move to restore the right of disenfranchised Cebu City residents to vote in the provincial elections... the battleground of which will be in the House of Representatives, especially now that Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu south district) has openly declared that he would block this move at all levels in the House. As for our dear friend Rep. Raul del Mar, he hasn’t openly stated his position on this, but he intimated to me that he would open his own salvo when this reaches the floor of the House.

By the time these proposals end up in the Senate, I’m sure that Sen. Serge Osmeña III, too, would be there to do his bidding. Though we don’t know yet his frame of mind on this issue, I would like to believe that he would work to continue and preserve what his father, Sen. Serging Osmeña, and his grandfather, Don Sergio Osmeña, had held for a long time.

But then Sen. Osmeña’s political mind is hard to decipher these days (he was the only one who supported FPJ in Cebu), more so that he is also on his last term as senator. He just might opt for another shot at the sixth congressional district, where he had embarrassingly lost, or he could support the move for the redistricting of Cebu and run there. If he wants to run as governor, he just might support those who seek to break up Cebu. Right now, Sen. Osmeña has kept his cards close to his chest. Perhaps, he is sizing up his options and checking out the sentiments of the Cebuano voters.

Another option for Sen. Serge Osmeña is to run for mayor of Cebu City, something he hasn’t done and isn’t a farfetched idea simply because this would mean his brother, Mayor Tomas Osmeña, may not seek a third term, something he already did in the past when he allowed then Vice Mayor Alvin Garcia to take his place... and that’s when they eventually split up as friends and became bitter political rivals.

Meanwhile, last Friday, Leo Lastimosa of dyAB invited Rep. Raul del Mar and Toledo City councilor Jun Mercado to his Kapamilya Media Forum to talk about the still raging issue of splitting Cebu into four provinces.

It was actually the very first time I heard someone openly coming out to defend those who seek to break up our beloved Cebu province. Rep. Del Mar merely talked about the process that this would go through in the House. However, Mercado, who comes from the third district, only ended up revealing the weakness of their proposal to split Cebu province.

Mercado’s reason why they wanted to create Occidental Cebu is the fact that their district has been totally neglected by the province of Cebu. He mentioned that the Manipis and Naga-Uling roads (the latter, by the way, is already on its way to being fixed) and many other roads and infrastructure in the third district are among the worse in the province. There is no argument about this, but don’t you think that national roads are under the control of the national government, hence they are under the jurisdiction of their congressman. So if Rep. Yapha failed to deliver on his election campaign promises, why blame his failure on the province of Cebu?

With the provincial board voting to split Cebu in a nearly even 8-7 vote, you can be sure that this issue will become the battleground in the next election campaign. I’m betting that the majority of Cebuanos want to keep Cebu intact and those who want to split it would lose their political luster come election time. This article is actually a preview of Cebu politics to come.

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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.