Does the mayor play political possum?

It looks like the political battle lines are already drawn between His Honor, Cebu City Mayor, Michael L. Rama and Cebu South District Congressman, Hon. Tomas R. Osmena. Of course, both of them will shy from commenting that they are positioning themselves for an eventual clash in 2013. They will use a trite line – “election is too far away yet, let us do our work first”, or statements of similar import. Just the same, no matter how they deny what is obvious, they are irreversibly heading in that direction. They may do it squarely against each other or thru proxies like a Michael versus Margot contest.

While I saw the break up of the Osmena-Rama partnership as an inevitable event, it came sooner than I expected. Unless he succeeded in clandestinely organizing his own political campaign structure, the announcement by the mayor that he was finally leaving the group he had been with the last two decades might not have given him enough time to consolidate his friendly forces. This state led me to surmise that the mayor is at so great a disadvantage that, if the polls were held at present, he would be short handed.

There are plausible reasons many may view to support the theory that a Rama break-away is rather pre-mature.

1. Conventional wisdom says that a candidate for mayor needs strong line up for the council. It is assumed that councilors have their own support groups in the barangays and so when the pool together their fan following (pardon the showbiz lingo), they help push the candidacy of their own mayor.

On the basis of this prevailing school of thought, the mayor has none. In the present composition of the city, there is no city councilor who can be expected to stand by the side of the mayor. All of them believe that they owe their position not to the electorate but to the blessings of the congressman. Thus thru sheer loyalty, they will cast their lot with the former mayor.

However, if we dwell on this issue a little deeper, we might think that the mayor is not really that disadvantaged. There is a verifiable twist here and I begin to think that the city chief executive knows more than what he wants us to believe.

To the mayor, the so-called conventional wisdom might be fallacious. Our city councilors have been brainwashed into believing that their otherwise winsome personalities did not make them win. Their qualifications, if any, had nothing to do with their political victories. Try asking for a truly honest answer from anyone of our local legislators and they will admit that some of their rivals in the 2010 elections were better but their political benefactor, the south district representative, spelled the difference.

So, if he has the assurance of some respectable citizens, hitherto away from public eye, who the mayor can mold into a slate of bankable candidates, he is bound to spring some surprise.

2. The mayor has no political party to rely on. Sure, he announced earlier that while he left BOPK, he has not detached himself from the Liberal Party. But, the south district legislator will see to it that the mayor does not hold a direct access to Malacañang. His work being in Manila, the former mayor is closer to the powers-that-be than the city chief executive.

The incumbent mayor’s former boss will pull some historical strings to negate Rama’s being anointed as the Liberal Party mayoralty candidate. This was demonstrated days before the May 2010 polls with a picture of Ninoy Aquino, Gerry Roxas and Serging Osmena, all LP stalwarts of yore, placed on top the newer version composed of the Noynoy, Mar and Tommy.

But then again, the mayor knows this too just as he knows that the vice president of our republic, who is not a member of the Liberal party, is looking to field a viable mayoralty candidate in the mid term elections of 2013. In the mind of the honorable vice president, there is no better one than the leader sitting at city hall.

And the scene gets interesting each day, friends.