We must make a choice
Earlier in my life, I had the privilege to be associated with Cebu City’s two opposing candidates for mayor in the 2019 elections. My experiences with them might have given me an insight into their predilections better than most. Since I will be voting one of them to serve as city mayor in my twilight years, I will try to be objective. That means graduating my past personal encounters with them vis-a-vis their pronouncements on certain issues. I pray for God’s guidance in making my choice because both of them deserve the mayoralty.
Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella and I graduated from the University of the Visayas high school in 1967. Although he belonged to Section 2 and I was in Section 1, we had fairly good camaraderie. In college I remember having invited Labella to our fraternity with Hilarion Delantar (now deceased) as our grand chancellor and I was the vice grand. If I was among the first to hit him with a paddle is now a blurred memory. There was a campus political group called Young Turks which I helped organize to battle with perceived administration candidates and had Labella running with us. We soundly beat our opponents with Labella scoring not far from my pole ranking.
In 1987, Mayor Tomas Osmeña came home from US where he stayed during martial law. When Osmeña tried to organize a political group out of the ruins of Bando Osmeña, he asked someone to sound me off to join his team. That was how we met. His move surprised me. I was both humbled and honored because we were not friends and our paths never previously crossed. In our eventual meeting I had to tell him that when his father, the late Serging, ran against Marcos in 1969, I led a student group supporting Da Apo. I also had to tell him that I had no political stock in Cebu. In our sharing of ideas on how to run the city, I imagined that our political ideals were common.
My personal acquaintance with both mayoralty candidates are of no moment. What did Labella probably show that prompted Osmeña to get him as a candidate for councilor in the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan lineup many years ago? Conversely, what kind of leadership did Osmeña perhaps demonstrate that Labella sought to run for public office under him? These are the questions that each Cebu City voter will have to find out from the pages of the city’s past in order to be able to choose whom to vote about five months from now. Time is running short and so it has become urgent for us to do our screening.
Labella was a director in the Office of the Ombudsman before he joined politics. His view of graft cases was more profound than other people who manifested interest in running for public office. In any attempt to fight corruption in government, his experience was an important tool. More than that, he managed to steer clear of the usual controversies amongst personalities involved in Ombudsman cases. In other words, he appeared docile and less combative. These could be among the reasons Osmeña considered in taking Labella in.
According to a fraternity brother, also a lawyer, Labella actively sought his inclusion in the BOPK because he believed he had a bigger chance of winning under Osmeña than with the Garcias. That was how Labella saw it in Cebu City politics. My frat brother even conjectured that in Labella’s mind, he had to learn the proverbial ropes first before attempting to be independent.
Have both the sitting mayor and vice mayor changed their earlier perceptions of each other now that they are contenders for city mayor? More importantly what must we do to find out who is the better candidate?
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