Early campaigning for Cebu City Rep. Tomas Osmeña is as simple as a free calendar and a manifesto.
On downtown Colon Street yesterday, volunteers, including children, handed out to passersby 2013 calendars featuring his family with Christmas and New Year greetings and wearing “Type O” shirts.
“I do it every year, election or no election. It’s tradition. And (my son) Miguel is not a candidate,” Osmeña told Cebu Daily News.
Inside the rolled up calendar is a copy of the open letter of Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) addressed to Liberal Party president Mar Roxas criticizing Mayor Michael Rama and supporting Osmeña as their candidate for mayor.
The same letter, appearing in newspaper ads last week,listed Osmeña’s awards as one of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men in the Philippines award in 1989 and Cebu City’s ranking by Newsweek as one of the Top 10 cities in Asia when he was still mayor –then comparing it to the city’s plunge to no place in the list afterward.
Mayor Rama earlier dismissed the letter as “pathetic” and said he would comment later when he returns from Rome.
His partner, former city councilor Jocelyn Pesquera said the printed boast was misleading in its claim that Osmeña propelled Cebu City into the list of the top 10 cities in Asia.
She said Alvin Garcia was mayor when Asiaweek ranked Cebu City as number eight in Asia’s top cities in its Oct. 25, 1996 issue.
Pesquera also said that when Osmeña received the most outstanding mayor award in 2002, Rama served as acting mayor for the first four months of that year while Osmeña was recuperating from an aneurysm.
Meanwhile, Las Pinas Rep. Mark Villar said the Nacionalista Party decided not to field local candidates here out of respect for their coalition with the LP.
Villar, son of Sen. Manuel Villar, said they continue to keep in touch with local allies in the province like Rep. Eduardo Gullas of Cebu’s 1st district.