Who will be Cebu's choice for president?

Recently, three presidential candidates - Mar Roxas, Jejomar Binay, and Grace Poe - showed up in Cebu to attend various social engagements. These were campaign sorties of course, but because the campaign period had not yet started, their appearances were billed only as fellowship visits.

These visits were only the beginning of campaign activities in the weeks ahead after February 9, the start of the campaign period for national positions. Cebu with 2.7 million voters is easily the favorite campaign arena for would be presidents and vice presidents.

The big question is: Whom will Cebu vote for president?

In the 2004 elections, Cebu province and Cebu City gave Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a whopping 1,185,690 votes as against her closest rival, the late Fernando Poe, Jr. who got only 181,690 votes. How can we explain the avalanche of votes for Arroyo while only a trickle for the popular actor?

The reason was that Cebuanos are highly discriminating voters. They knew that between a college educated economist with extensive exposure in Philippine bureaucracy and a box-office actor who had limited academic seasoning and no experience in public governance, their choice was clearly for the former.

Thus Cebu became the favorite country for GMA. In gratitude she poured a lot of funds for its infrastructure projects - the Cansaga viaduct, the widening of Cebu-Carcar road, the concreting of dozens of Cebu bridges, the Marcelo Fernan Bridge, etc.

With all these projects, the feeling was that Cebu would still be a GMA country in the 2010 elections. But between 2004 and 2010, the lady president's administration was marred by several exposes of corruption, and these must have turned off majority of the Cebuanos. The result, her candidate in the 2010 polls, Gibo Teodoro, got only 50 percent of the votes garnered by Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal party which was 986,280 or more than a million if the votes from the other cities were counted.

The implication is that Cebu electorates are sensitive to corruption issues, and thus they found GMA's endorsement of Gibo unacceptable. What appealed to them at that time was PNoy's. Mr. Clean image, not having been associated with any irregularities during his terms as a congressman and as a senator.

With regard to the forthcoming elections, would Cebuanos be still mesmerized by PNoys vaunted integrity? If so, would they accept his anointment of Mar Roxas as the next president? A positive answer is doubtful.

Six years of daang matuwid seems not to have abated the landscape of corruption in the country as reported by a number of foreign-based studies. PNoy himself may be personally unblemished, but his refusal to go after the necks of his erring KKK associates has been viewed as a condonation of bureaucratic malfeasance, which is itself a form of corruption. These, plus many other negative issues have piled up in the inventory of PNoy's indiscretions. His endorsement of Mar Roxas therefore sounds hollow to Cebuanos.

Who then will get the lion's share of Cebu votes? Binay may have circulated many times among the masa here and engaged in barehanded meals with them but the stigma of accusations on alleged corruptions is hounding him. Grace Poe may be lily-white insofar as malfeasances are concerned, but her experiential credentials may not measure up to what local voters consider adequate. Moreover, the disqualification cases filed against her, although yet undecided, has strained her supporters' enthusiasm. Lack of enthusiasm too is seen on the entry of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago to the race. Her feisty stance impresses Cebu intellectuals, but in the grassroots this does not work.

And what of Digong Duterte? His lineage is from Cebu and he speaks like a native Cebuano, but would Cebu electorate rally behind him? There's no guarantee. "Paisano" votes is not a Cebuano inclination as witnessed the frustration of local aspirants to national posts - Serging Osmeña, Marcelo Fernan, Lito Osmeña. Moreover, Duterte's vulgar language and his swashbuckling posturing has turned off many Cebuanos.

Who will be Cebu's choice for president? It's difficult to tell yet at this time.

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