Kusug leaders says coalition with Team Rama negates BO-PK advantage

THE Kugi Uswag Sugbu (Kusug) party is committed to deliver at least 100,000 votes for re-electionist Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and the three other Team Rama candidates whom they are supporting, said party chairman Raymond Alvin Garcia.

Garcia said that his father, former mayor Alvin Garcia, gathered over 100,000 votes from Kusug followers in the 2010 election when he run for mayor against Rama.

The younger Garcia is confident that they will also be able to give the same number of votes to Rama, vice mayor candidate Edgar Labella and congressional candidates Anabelle Rama (north district) and Aristotle Batuhan (south district) in the May 13 election.

“Our members are mostly down in the grassroots level. We still have former barangay captains and incumbent barangay captains. We still do have a strong membership hold,” Garcia said during the 888 media forum yesterday morning at the Marco Polo Hotel.

The Kusug chairman though admitted that the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) lead by south district Rep. Tomas Osmeña is a force to reckon with.

The alliance between Team Rama and Kusug, however, said Garcia negates whatever advantage of BOPK has right now.

“Tomas Osmena is a good politician. Maru (cunning). He knows that he is doing,” he said.

Garcia said that his father and the Kusug group learned their lesson on Osmena’s political expertise “the hard way.”

He said that when Osmeña run against his father, who was then a two term mayor, in the 2001 election, their group was “too confident.”

The elder Garcia lost by 3,000 votes to Osmeña in that election

Garcia said that his father’s loss widened to 30,000 votes in the 2004 election because Osmeña was already in power then and had the advantage of using City Hall resources in his campaign.

Garcia said that Kusug can share these experiences with Team Rama.

He said Osmeña would always make sure that he wins in every election because politics is his bread and butter unlike the Garcias who still have their legal profession and businesses as a fallback.

“For Osmeña, politics is his main line of business. That is why he is also very good at it,” said Raymond Garcia./Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac