AT 82, Rep. Eduardo Gullas said he has the stamina to lead because of the “mystical” quality of doing public service.
He was asked in the Mega Cebu Candidate’s Fora yesterday by moderator Malou Guanzon-Apalisok about talk in Talisay that Gullas would “lean more” on Mayor Socrates Fernandez to run the city if he gets elected in May because of his advanced age and the complexity of the tasks of a chief executive.
The congressman, who survived cancer several years ago, cited his government career since 1969.
“I was governor of Cebu in my 40s and then became a congressman in my 50s. Even if I don’t have the energy now that I had back then, there is this mystical component within, of wanting to serve the public (that keeps me going),” Gullas said.
Gullas defended Mayor Fernandez as “among the most humble people” he knows, “but he is running for the City Council and he will remain in the council.”
Asked how he would handle the mayor’s controversial adopted son, Joavan, who gets into brushes with the law for threatening people while brandishing a gun, Gullas said he would order the Talisay City police chief “to arrest anyone found to be committing a wrongdoing.”
“I will order their arrest regardless of who they are,” Gullas said, drawing applause from the audience.
When Joavan’s brushes with the law was widely reported in the media a few years back, Gullas said he told the mayor to have his son seek drug rehabilitation.
“I told the mayor that he has to commit his son to drug rehabilitation. I told him that even if he is Joavan’s father, he is also the father of the Talisay City residents,” Gullas said.
Last month, Joavan was seen posting campaign posters of his foster father in the wall of an elderly woman’s home without her permission in Talisay City.
When the woman protested and asked him to remove the posters, Joavan just showed the handgun tucked in his waistband and continued his poster work.