The difference between Governor Gwen and Mayor Mike

The Cebuanos love both the lady governor and the city mayor, who are both allies of the incoming administration. But apart from these similarities, the two local leaders are poles apart in characters and in leadership styles. The mayor is very easy to love by Malacañang, while the governor appears difficult to control. I think this is a good combination; good guy and bad guy, sweet and sour, coffee and cream, salt and pepper. Good for Cebu.

Malacañang would easily love Mayor Mike, like a favorite son who looks exactly like his dad (did you see his photo, almost cheek to cheek with Marcos?) because he is always abiding and aligned with Manila and its gods. On the other hand, Governor Gwen is like a ferocious daughter, independent, strong-willed, and who refuses to toe the line of the ivory tower technocrats of Malacañang.

On the issue of face masks, Mayor Mike always insists on strictly following the protocols of the IATF, as if these are doctrinal truths and biblical dogmas. Governor Gwen thinks of the larger implications to business and to the nobler purpose of local autonomy. She is like a democrat who loves the province more.

The governor is not a lawyer but she thinks and talks like one. Mayor Mike is a brilliant legal luminary but he thinks like a pragmatist and behaves like a republican, always following the White House.

It can be recalled that Mayor Mike declared his support for Marcos way, way ahead of Governor Gwen, who was torn between a brother and party sec-gen, who was for Isko and a daughter, who is Inday Sara's spokeswoman. And she was thinking and weighing and consulting people. But Mayor Mike jumped the gun and was bullish from the very start. Both of them are in the same boat now but they behave distinctly according to their respective philosophies.

I think that Mayor Mike learned from the pains derived from being misunderstood by Malacañang. What President Duterte did to him was very painful, if not traumatic. Others would have taken that as a sufficient provocation and the natural tendency was to rebel and to fight. But Mike is indeed a pragmatist.

He knows that he has no wherewithal to mount a fight against the holder of delegated sovereign power. Thus he dances with the king who caused him anguish. He is like Rajah Humabon who played the game with Ferdinand Magellan, even to the extent of declaring animosity with Lapu-Lapu. But he reaped the fruits of amity.

Gwen is more like Lapu-Lapu, defiant of any form of control. Being the eldest child of the late governor and congressman, Noy Pabling, and a strong and courageous lady judge, Manang Inday, Gwen has always been trained to stand on her own principles, never to be bullied or dominated by others, even by bigger and older boys.

Thus, I am not surprised that she went ahead and issued that now-controversial executive order. But she has a legal basis and she stands on the higher principle of local autonomy. And I salute her for that. I always support independence of judgment.

Mayor Mike is a practical man, realist and pragmatist. He sees the values of cooperating with the source of support and funding. Governor Gwen looks at the principles and does not hesitate to step on the toes of others, even catches their ire if only to prove her point.

She reminds me of the song The Impossible Dream. There is a line towards the end: To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause. But Mike wants heaven by befriending the angels and the saints.

Don't ask me which one is better. I would say we can use both their styles. Whatever is good for Cebu is worth our support.