The Osmeña centerfold

The term centerfold had, in my youth, exciting connotation. If mentioned among mischievous friends, we would associate it with Playboy magazine. What added to our youthful excitement was the fact that the magazine was expensive so each time we had a copy we feasted. Our preferred part of the magazine was its centerfold which always featured the world’s most beautiful women in titillating poses and our imagination would go wonderfully wild and abundantly reckless.

Outgoing Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña excited the minds not only of senior citizens who remembered Playboy’s centerfold of Bo “Perfect 10” Derek but probably the rest of the Cebuano electorate with his seemingly useless though equally expensive advertisement in the centerfolds of local dailies.

I now surmise Osmeña must still be agonizing over his devastating defeat, like Nero weeping at the sight of Rome burning. Despite his earlier concession to mayor-elect Edgardo Labella, Osmeña must have felt the need to unload his hurt on those who repudiated him in the recent polls. In his paid advertisement, he wanted to tell us we lost his championing our cause in the sale of some portions of the South Road Properties. Perhaps thinking that by posing a question rather than making a declaration, he could skirt liability for libel. Let’s review some incidents for a better appreciation of Osmeña’s centerfold.

Following the 2013 victory of Michael Rama over Osmeña, Rama sold a portion of the SRP to buyers who were among the country’s leading mega-bucks corporations and, indeed, the consideration was eye-poppingly huge. Then Osmeña ranted against the sale although many people thought he just probably salivated. But, rather than personally raising his questions in court to attack the validity of the sale, he asked a third party (I don’t want to use “stooge” because that is too unkind to describe a former assistant city prosecutor) to file a case. To me then, the case was a misguided missile. Asking someone to initiate a case only showed how unsure he was of his supposed cause of action. (Anyway, as we read from the papers last week, the Court of Appeals junked the case)

Just as the dust of the 2016 reversal of political fortunes settled, Osmeña announced he will ask to rescind the sale contract his legal handyman fought. We waited in vain. The promised case never came, leading me to recall William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Just few days after Osmeña’s 2019 political defeat, he published his centerfold. He may not know his purported missile is as useless as a dead coconut tree. Even his hope that it can somehow save his political image is farcical. The sale of portions of SRP, which this centerfold tries to assail, is reported to be declared legal and valid by the court. In attempting to impute vice and defect to the contract, Osmeña only casts aspersion on the integrity of the court. Contempt of court is, thus, not improbable. If on the other hand, Osmeña believes in the righteousness of absent action, his failure to file it on time is negligence of the worst order.

On top of all these, Osmeña has, in his centerfold, most possibly libeled Rama. Is this centerfold for our eyes to behold and enjoy as we did Playboy’s? Or is it injurious enough to Rama’s honor for the clansmen to act on?