I was beside lawyer Amay Ong-Vaño when Balamban Mayor Alex Binghay read the resolution and he told me that from a legal standpoint, only a foreigner could be declared a persona non grata. But since Rep. Martinez virtually insulted Cebuanos with her allegations that we cheated in the last elections, that self-declaration virtually makes Clavel a foreigner to most Cebuanos who could not believe that after more than a year, she was still hurting over the political defeat of her husband, Celestino "Junnie" Martinez, who ran for governor of Cebu.
In effect, her mea culpa puts even her own position as congresswoman of the fourth district in question. People are asking around that if she’s so filled with remorse for cheating in the last elections, why doesn’t she resign over this very embarrassing episode? Indeed, that is a good observation because if her allegations are true, Rep. Martinez would certainly not cheat only for the President, but also for her husband and, of course, herself! She’s now the first politician to admit cheating in the polls and still ended up losing her husband’s gubernatorial bid! What a shame!
Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia took the podium and said, "When Clavel sentenced Cebuanos as cheats, she (shook) the foundation of GMA’s presidency; after all, she had a (margin of a) million votes in Cebu… hence we are not taking her accusations lying down and say that Cebuanos didn’t cheat in the last elections." For his part, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said, "Elections are never 100 percent accurate… sure there must have been cheating somewhere, but not in a massive scale that they are trying to project. Thus, we should not allow her reckless comments to remain unanswered."
Mayor Osmeña then told the story of a taxi driver who was asked by his friend from Manila as to why GMA won in Cebu, and the answer of this taxi driver to his passenger was, "Cebuanos know how to vote and we don’t want to have a high school dropout to be President." The Cebu City mayor then rattled on that Cebuanos are never awestruck by movie stars. His final statement was quite a stinging blow to the legislative branch when he said, "Let me point out that the Senate and House have become totally irrelevant to the development of this country."
Indeed, we do things differently in Cebu. The best example was the free Gary Valenciano concert put up by the campaigners for Bro. Eddie Villanueva, which only fetched less than 5,000 people. To think that Bro. Eddie was able to muster a million in Manila. If I may add, Erap also lost in Cebu.
Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama came out with a brief, but equally stinging statement, virtually telling Rep. Martinez that she speaks only for her district, "Bogo is not the whole of Cebu, nor is Manila the Philippines and vice-versa. If she admits to cheating, then she only speaks for her district!"
The most telling among the speakers was Daanbantayan Mayor Ma. Luisa Loot who comes from the very same fourth district of Rep. Martinez. Mayor Loot demanded that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) open the canvass of the town of Bogo where she said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) garnered 28,000 votes, while Junnie Martinez garnered 32,000 votes, and Gov. Gwen Garcia got a measly 600 votes. Mayor Loot insisted that if there was cheating, it only happened in the town that the Martinezes control: Bogo. Yet, strangely, President Arroyo got a lesser number of votes there, when at least she should have been at par with the votes for Junnie Martinez.
Former Cebu Gov. Pablo Garcia also spoke and asked Martinez that if there was cheating in her district, she should not lump the other districts of Cebu where elections were without question clean and honest. The former governor came out with a stinging rebuke to Martinez’s assertion that she only blurted out her true sentiments a year after the elections because she was still suffering the pain of her husband’s political loss. Well, who was it who said, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
Like what I’ve said, if Rep. Martinez is suffering from a bout of conscience and insists that they cheated for GMA in the last elections, then there’s more reason to have her own election returns investigated. But if she still has a drop of honor in her, her resignation would suffice. Martinez has no moral ascendancy to demand the resignation of the President, while she continues to keep her job that she won because she cheated.
After I left the provincial Capitol, I passed by Fuente Osmeña where there was a small anti-GMA rally organized by the Bayan-Central Visayas. Perhaps because of the rains, they only had less than 40 people bearing red banners. This brought me back to an issue that we questioned Rep. Clavel Martinez shortly before the presidential elections when she was accused of "money laundering" or, should I say, misusing her pork barrel for highly questionable purposes.
One of the beneficiaries of the P1.5 million from her pork barrel was Bayan Muna. So if you want to know where Bayan got money for all the anti-government leaflets and all those red flags, surely part of that money came from Martinez and yes, that money is taxpayers’ money. And by God, since when did the communist groups pay their taxes, huh? Now Martinez and Bayan are strange bedfellows because Bayan has always wanted the President out of Malacañang and Rep. Clavel Martinez has joined their chorus to further destabilize this politically sick nation of ours!