Getting to know the Cebuano psyche

We’ve said many times before that Cebuanos feel insulted when the opposition dares to accuse us of cheating in the last presidential elections. So when one of us, Rep. Clavel Asas-Martinez, went berserk on nationwide TV to accuse Cebuanos of massive cheating, that elicited an angry response from Cebu’s political leadership, who declared her a persona non grata. Well, such accusations continue until this time, so allow me to reprint a self-explanatory letter that gives you an insight into the Cebuano psyche.

"Dear Mr. Avila, I have always thought that the simplest and most sensible way to rebut claims of cheating in Cebu is what happened to Nanding Celeste when he ran for governor. First off, he was a hugely popular local entertainer, enough reason for him to be voted many times over as a board member, vice-governor... but governor?... Ah, this was where the Cebuanos drew the line... he could be in those other positions, but NOT governor, so he lost. Did he cry massive cheating? No he didn’t; he apparently knew that he lost... herein lies the catch.

"When it comes to the crunch, Cebuanos know the chaff from the grain; they may play with Celeste by letting him win over and over, but only to a limit... that limit being any position less than the governorship... Now if Cebuanos (who are a highly clannish lot) could do this to their own popular local idol, all the more would we expect it to be done to a remote Manila-based idol like FPJ no matter how popular?

"If the logic is that FPJ must have won in Cebu because he was a hugely popular national idol, then we could have expected Nanding Celeste to trash Pabling... but the contrary happened, with nary a whimper about ‘massive cheating’ from Celeste. The myth being peddled that FPJ must have lost only by being cheated is a misreading of the Cebuanos and, worse, an insult to the discerning ways by which Cebuanos exercise their vote. The Nanding Celeste phenomenon is proof of this.

"That FPJ lost in Cebu is the Cebuanos’ way of saying, ‘Well, you’re a popular idol/actor and we like you that way... but not as President.’ That’s much like what the Cebuanos made clear to Nanding: "We like you as our local idol so we will let you have your board member seat, even the vice governorship, but the governorship is off-limits’... Joe Sevilla ([email protected])

"P.S. Didn’t Cebuanos also vote 12-1 for Noli de Castro during the 2001 senatorial elections? Maybe a close scrutiny of the voting pattern of Cebu is in order to dispel this untruth being peddled as truth about cheating in Cebu."

Thank you, Mr. Joe Sevilla, for that timely reminder. How could I have forgotten the last elections where then incumbent Cebu Gov. Pablo Garcia ran for his final term? Indeed, what Mr. Sevilla related in this letter really happened. Cebuanos were horrified to know that the coming Cebu governor would be an immensely popular radio entertainer named Nanding Celeste who was then the vice governor. If you want to know why FPJ wasn’t that popular in Cebu, it is simply because there were no theaters outside Metro Cebu and few people living in the province saw his movies at his prime. But Nanding was extremely popular, yet he lost in that election.

* * *

Last Monday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) $333-million space probe dubbed "Deep Impact," which got its name from the Hollywood sci-fi hit movie was a stunning success, where its spacecraft launched its "impactor" into comet Tempel 1 and the resulting explosion (which was recorded on video from the mother ship) is supposed to reveal the secrets of the beginning of the cosmos.

No doubt, this project reveals America’s great technological advancement. Just a hundred years ago, going to the moon was a mere pipe dream and to think that the moon was just hanging up there. Project Deep Impact chased a comet deep into space, frontally intercepting the comet to collide with it. This project gives us a ray of hope on how to handle future celestial disasters that the Earth could face and wipe out civilization... collisions with asteroids, and God knows how many near-misses we’ve been through. The Deep Impact project revealed that America is the only nation on Earth that can intercept a comet and destroy it with nuclear missiles.

* * *

Meanwhile, Bob Geldof’s Live 8 concert a few days ago, which was actually 10 simultaneous rock concerts around the globe, was a stunning success. This concert advocated the eradication of poverty in Africa and was designed to coincide with the Group of 8 Summit, which is being held today in Gleneagles, Scotland. So will the G-8 respond to the Live 8 concert by forgiving Africa’s huge debt and give $25 billion in aid? We’ll know soon enough.

But what about the rest of the world? There’s also poverty in Asia or in South America. In the Philippines alone, we also have our share of people living below the poverty line... aren’t we going to get any respite from our huge debt? I was watching a CNN special report on the global war against poverty and not surprisingly, the formula to solve poverty is strikingly similar to the solutions we have here back home... which is good governance and good education. These are solutions that the Philippine government knew 30 years ago. So the question is where did we go wrong?

The answer to that question is clear to all of us... that we vote the wrong people to be our leaders. Clearly, what is happening to this nation today stems from an electoral process that is not fraud-proof. Hence, this is where Congress should concentrate its efforts by overhauling our electoral process rather than finger-pointing… which is exactly what they are doing today. Now as the Gloriagate unravels, the Filipinos are slowly realizing that President Arroyo wasn’t alone in talking to that Comelec commissioner.

As it turned out, opposition leaders were also part of that wiretapped conversations. This is why we saw the blank face of President Arroyo during her apology looking so insincere. That’s because it is painful to be the only one to apologize for something everyone was doing! I rest my case. So will we see more apologies this week? I doubt we will.

* * *

For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.