Vilma Andales was no babe in the journalism world when she interviewed this week BOPK candidate for mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña, wife of party chief and former mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Margot is a former city councilor (2010-2019) who served as acting mayor when then mayor Michael Rama was suspended, along with his vice mayor and a number of councilors in the dying months of his 2013 to 2016 term. She implemented Tomas’s moves in preparation for his term, mostly to cripple the opposition, which was to begin on June 30, 2016.
No surprise that Andales opened with her figurative gun blazing. She asked Margot if her running was ill-timed, given her age and the pandemic.
[1] AGE AND THE PLAGUE. Margot’s specific age (73 this coming July 25) was not mentioned but Andales put the issue of age out there. Why only now, Andales asked her. “Isn’t it too late” for her? People are making an issue about her being a senior and thus extremely vulnerable in the time of the pandemic.
Margot didn’t go around the issue of age. She readily admitted being a senior (“very senior”). She had her chance in 2013, 65 barangay captains petitioned for her candidacy but “Tommy made good his promise to Mike (Rama) that he’d be the next mayor” after Tomas was term-limited in that year. And she didn’t have any thought of running for mayor at the time.
But Margot’s chief rival, Barug’s Mayor Michael Rama, turned 67 last October 28, only about six years younger than her. And she has tried to obscure the matter of age by exploiting her being a woman, capitalizing on her being a “Mom,” acronym for Margot Our Mayor but also taps the mother’s capacity to fix problems in the house.
[2] HER DECISION, “NOT IMPOSED” ON HER. Margot repeated what she said before, when the shift from Representative Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa to her as the BOPK bet for mayor, was first announced. She made the decision, not her husband Tomas. (Obviously to appease Bebot, Tomas later gave the congressman the House slot and one council slot in the south for Abellanosa’s two sons, who are still neophytes in politics.)
Tommy himself confined his explanation to what must be his realization that he didn’t want to stay in Manila. He also served one term as congressman from 2010 to 2013 and had a generally lackluster performance. Those who know the BOPK chief though said that only political advantage would prompt him to make such a major substitution.
[3] A ‘PLACEHOLDER’ FOR TOMAS? Andales asked Margot if she is not just a “placeholder” for her husband. Maybe not. Tomas might make the major decisions if Margot would win on May 9. But that wouldn’t mean he’d take her place. But he could be the real power behind Mayor Margot, with the wife still the mayor but only in name.
That wouldn’t happen for two reasons, Margot told Andales. One, her husband is “not the kind who’d impose on her.” Two, she’s not the kind on whom anyone would impose. At the end, it would be she making the decisions.
Of course, Margot said, she’d consult Tommy. He is her husband and he is a former mayor, with four terms on his belt, with a “very strong” personality.
A variation on the possible arrangement is the “buy one, take two pitch.” Voters elect Mayor Margot; they get her and her husband Tomas. Not helping douse the speculation is that in his December 3 meeting with Carbon vendors, Tomas talked of plans as if he’d be the mayor, including the idea of having a “night mayor.” He could be the “night mayor.”
[4] NOT SURE ABOUT CORRUPTION. Margot said she doesn’t know about City Hall being dirty when Andales asked if that was her belief, given her plan to clean up the City Government and fix things.
But she’s asking, Margot said, part of the people’s right to know and the accountability of public officials to provide the information.
[5] CARBON MARKET GETS TOP PRIORITY. Margot told Andales there’s a good reason to give the Carbon Market modernization project her full and first attention if she wins. The livelihood of vendors and the source of food for poor consumers are at stake. She opposes converting Carbon into a private market as it could only mean higher prices of commodities it sells.
Margot blamed the City Council for not reading the joint venture agreement before it approved the deal. Overlooked, however, in the blame game is that the chief executive, through the joint venture selection committee, had ample time in the negotiation of the terms of the deal.
[6] TO RELY ON COMPETENT STAFF. Margot said she’d have a competent staff that will help tackle the city’s problems. And she’d listen to the complaints of people, as if the public hearings of the Sanggunain before passing legislation were not enough.
One of the ideas introduced by her husband during his term as mayor was to set up a corps of bright people to help manage City Hall. It was not known how that turned out. No report of its performance was publicized.
[7] MARGOT’S PITCH. She told Andales she offers “alternative” to the kind of leadership being offered by her rival, she is a woman, and she’d have as consultant no less than a former mayor who served 12 years as the city’s chief executive and a former congressman who served three years in the House of Representatives.
She can fix things, she repeated more than once, and she’ll do it “step by step.”
[Vilma Andales and a few others who are former ABS-CBN employees have created a Facebook page called BCC Digital Cebu. Her interview with Margot Osmeña will be aired next Friday, December 17, she said.]
