One significance of Barug slash PDP

We are just three weeks away from the assumption of office of Edgardo Labella as Cebu City mayor and Michael Rama as the vice mayor. During the campaign and as we gleaned from their propaganda materials, we knew them to be candidates of Partido Barug/PDP-Laban. This early, we have to note the forward slash (sometimes simply called “slash” or “slant” or the archaic term “virgule”) between the words Barug and PDP because in English expository writings it can either mean “and” or “or”. Mostly though, the slash is to be taken as a punctuation mark indicating an alternative.

I am not a member of the PDP-Laban which is the national political party of President Rodrigo Duterte, supposedly the titular head, so I know nothing about it. While I am not (yet) a member of Partido Barug, where Michael Rama is the founding president, I had the privilege of reading the documents leading to its registration with and recognition by the Commission on Elections as a local and regional party. It was in my humble home where these papers assumed form and substance.

I like to believe that the fundamental principles on which the Partido Barug stands are not entirely dissimilar to PDP-Laban’s. There should, of course, be few divergent ideological concepts governing these two groups, but the similarities of their political philosophies must be more dominant as to become the forcible reason for them to band together for purposes of the May 2019 elections.

PDP-Laban is not Partido Barug. As a national party, PDP-Laban tends to attract more personalities, well politicians, to affiliate with it. Long before the last election, the chairman of its local party organization here in Cebu City was not an elected official. But, I learned that in the months leading to the May 2019 polls, the bandwagon of Cebu City political leaders led by Vice Mayor (now mayor-elect) Labella and councilors Raymond Garcia, Joel Garganera, Joy Pesquera, and Joey Daluz joined the president’s party. For some perceived political expediency, they abandoned the United Nationalists Alliance (UNA), a national party like PDP-Laban, under which they were voted to office in the 2016 elections.

Michael Rama did not join the PDP Laban. He did not want to be labelled as a political turncoat, balimbing. An unpalatable local term. While UNA was deserted by its fair-weather friends and allies, Rama chose to be its loyal defender. In fact he, without leaving UNA organized the men and women composing the backbone of Team Rama, among them Philip Zafra, Erik Espina, and Jun Alcover as officials of Partido Barug. Lawyers Joy Pesquera and Joey Daluz, both Cebu City councilors, were also officers of the local party even if they had become members of a national party.

I take a conscious effort to cite the foregoing facts because I believe that there are ramifications from the slash between Barug and PDP for us to understand. Prominent among them is that when Mayor Labella assumes as mayor on June 30, it will be a PDP-Laban administration, not that of Partido Barug. As the city’s PDP-Laban head, he calls the shots in restructuring the personnel manpower in City Hall. I foresee that hundreds, if not thousands of job order employees and those occupying positions that are deemed co-terminus with outgoing elected officials will be replaced by PDP-Laban cadres.

In a private talk I had with Rama, he stressed this point. He spoke with the authority as Partido Barug president. According to him, there will be no confusion here. He will not interfere in Labella’s prerogative of filling up the manpower needs of City Hall. That will toe the PDP Laban line. Labella alone will decide over the fate of City Hall employees who are believed to be die-hard supporters of BOPK.