Sabong competes with basketball as our national pastime. Although, I dare treat the evolving election time as a pastime higher in ranking than both. In sabong, there is a glaring discrimination even before the start of fight. Owners and cocks are assigned disparaging and discriminatory sides: Llamado or meron sign is lit up for the one with the larger pot-money bet, and dejado or wala under an unlit sign, signifying long shot. In elections, the description administration candidates (llamado) versus any opposition lineup, (dejado) is worse than disparaging and discriminatory.
The internet says there are known dishonest and deceitful ways in the pairing of cocks. Surreptitiously, by a swift and expert motion of a hand, a rib of a cock can be cracked, or its wing disabled, or a leg sprained. Sometimes, a poisoned grain or food niblet is flicked to an opposing cock’s pecking space. At other times, when the blade is commissioned for attachment, a blade man’s slight but critical maladjustment of the blade may undo a cock’s fighting effectiveness. Of course, there are stories of blades being swiped with poison.
The situations of Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes and Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, both candidates for reelection in 2025, aren’t unlike fighting cocks fed a grain or food niblet laced with toxin. These fighting cocks, mayors, in this article, are each with a cracked rib, disabled wing, sprained leg, and with blade swiped with poison administered by power wielders. Why?
Not only is election our number 1 national pastime, I say that politicians have great foresight. The present national dispensation is looking far ahead to the 2028 polls. Cortes isn’t presently aligned with any political party under the umbrella of the president while Rama recently declared being on the side of the president’s raging political foe. Yes, the current national leadership probably upon the insistence of local honchos believes that Cortes and Rama are difficult to beat in a fair 2025 electoral fight. Cortes and Rama must be removed this early from any future electoral processes lest they could be in position to effect the 2028 presidential elections.
I am not Cortes’ or Rama’s lawyer. None of the attorneys in my law office had been consulted, much less engaged, by any or both. Their cases are handled by high-strung law offices. So whatever little I know of the attendant facts and relevant laws, I only gathered from newspapers, radio reports, and some knowledgeable sources.
If I read it right, the Cortes case out of which he got a verdict of dismissal from office was a zombie exhumed by some political demi-gods walking in the corridors of power. My teaching Constitutional Law for 40 years tells me that the impact of this zombie case isn’t ponderous enough as to yield to a legal conclusion that Cortes should be dismissed. But I can imagine this is the only way the patrons of Jonas’ political adversaries can crack his rib, disable his wing, and sprain his leg so he can be defeated in 2025.
The same is accordingly true in Rama’s case. He could be faulted for nepotism but certainly kicking him out of office on that reasoning alone is more unjust than his appointing a brother-in-law to a government job. As analogy, we can simply look into any government office and we can always find a relative of a councilor, vice mayor, department head, and lawmaker appointed to a government work because he is backed by such official. In that situation nepotism may not apply to him because of legal niceties but he is, without doubt, so employed because of his nepotistic relative.
But if the voters of Mandaue and Cebu Cities see thru this brazen display of excessive political power and feel wronged by its abusive and oppressive character, will they not favor instead their oppressed Mayors Cortes and Rama? Just asking.