Are these rumors or valid observations?

A few months before the year 2012 came to a close, there were speculations that criminal and administrative charges were to be filed against a provincial governor of a neighboring Visayan island and a mayor of a Mindanao city. Talks pushed further that out of which cases preventive suspensions would ensue. The whole durations of such suspensions were supposed to last until the May 2013 elections, it being the perceptions that putting the officials involved out of office, even if temporarily, would have been the only way to fight, in so far as the province, his (and his brother's) political control of that province and as regards the city, his domination thereof.

When in mid December, the Office of the President of the republic, penalized Her Honor, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, with a suspension, the observers in the neighboring province as well as in the Mindanao city took that as a signal that their own governor and mayor were next on the guillotine. If, to them, the Cebu governor, with growing sympathies from Visayan provinces on account of her positive posturing, could be placed in an embarrassing position, there was no reason why a politician with no fan following of sort outside of their small province, could be untouchable. That was only the sentiment of the Mindanao folks.

Indeed, aside from that iffy, analysts in both political subdivisions had solid basis in assuming that the charges would materialize soon. Both provincial and city leaders had parallel situations vis-a-vis the Cebu governor. One. Our own (suspended) governor has a political machinery throughout the province that looked (it still, somehow, is) invincible. One Cebu as a party, according to the claim of its stalwarts, is organized in every town. It has candidates for every electoral post at stake. On the contrary, our reading is that, as of today, the Liberal Party in Cebu is unable to put up candidates in some towns. The party of the president would then be placed at a great disadvantage this coming May.

Two. The kind of relationship the (suspended) governor built over the years with municipal officials and the provincial electorates has been both enigmatic and personal. I am not an elector in the provincial arena and I had no interest in the provincial elections, but I could feel it in the warm-hearted way television footages projected when she and her political supporters embraced during their visits to her as she continued to stay at the capitol.

Three. Some of the politicians in the province whom I had the chance to converse with spoke of the success of the (suspended) governor in knitting an apparently solid campaign structure. They mentioned that she could call them by their names but more importantly they believed that she has the kind of logistics to run such organization.

On those three counts, (suspended) Gov. Garcia, the governor of the neighboring island and the city mayor in Mindanao are at par. It may be weird to state that also because of those factors that it is to the best interest of the Liberal Party to put them in a state of stranglehold. Or so, those observers thought.

However, after a month had passed since the suspension of Gov. Garcia came down, observers in that Visayan province and Mindanao city have looked at their situations with an unexpectedly different outlook. Ironically, they point to the Cebu situation as a plausible explanation why their governor and mayor would not suffer (suspended) Gov. Garcia's fate.

To them, there is a continuing stand-off in the Cebu Capitol, despite the denial of His Honor, the president. They take this situation to work some kind of a threat of a possible backlash. If the government is unable to force the suspended governor out of the capitol, it must be because of a strong electoral base of the beleaguered governor that Malacañang must have noticed. That should explain why the powers that be withheld the filing of the cases against the Visayan governor and that in vein, it should be the reason why they suspension order of the Mindanao city mayor was not served.   

Candidly, I would want to label these observations of the goings-on in the island province and in the Mindanao city as speculations but, because they seem to carry distinct plausibility, I could hardly sneeze at them. The events in the next few weeks can either validate them or dismiss them as purveyors of rumors.