Look forward to cooperation
What does Cebu City’s Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) hope to accomplish with its election protest against reelected Mayor Michael Rama and Vice Mayor-elect Edgardo Labella?
Councilor-elect Gerardo Carillo said the integrity of the elections in which party chief Rep. Tomas Osmeña lost the city’s mayoral race by more than 6,000 votes to Rama, his erstwhile protege needs to be determined.
According to Carillo, a voter from barangay Calamba found pre-shaded ovals in his ballot beside the names of Rama and Labella.
He was given a fresh ballot to vote, and the chance to execute an affidavit recounting what he witnessed.
Vice Mayor Joy Young, who lost his reelection bid, charged that teachers who served on the Board of Election Inspectors were coopted through increased allowances from City Hall released in December to favor the candidates of Team Rama.
Osmeña accused Team Rama of vote-buying, something he has to back up with actual evidence. That Rama had a surprisingly well-oiled campaign with adequate logistics showed he had financial backers. That’s not illegal. Both camps have their respective bankers and well-heeled supporters.
For BO-PK’s protest to stand on solid ground, they have to go beyond looking for multiple incidents of pre-shaded ballots. They must show that Cebu City voters who got these ballots did not notice the anomaly and ask for new ones.
They must prove that hundreds of thousands of voters were not vigilant enough to ensure that the ballots they used were not tampered with.
Second, they must substantiate their claim that Team Rama bought votes while shielding themselves from counterclaims of involvement in the vote trade.
Vice Mayor Young’s theory that a P10,000 government allowance made cheats of teachers is a grand misfortune.
Is he, who styled himself in campaign posters as the father of several public schools, now admitting that he bred legions of gold-diggers?
How could the 2001 election loss of then mayor Alvin Garcia to Osmeña by a little over 3,000 votes be taken as a convincing win while Osmeña’s loss by more than double that margin in the May 13 election suddenly be so dubious?
BO-PK’s bigwigs and their supporters can acknowledge their losses and be gracious in defeat.
They still hold the majority bloc in the City Council.
To continue to brood over the loss of the mayoralty and vice mayoralty is pointless. Voters do change their minds, a reality the BO-PK should accept.
There is so much more that BO-PK councilors can offer their constituents if genuine public service is a common aspiration with the incoming Rama administration.
After almost three years of budget skirmishes over city funds and word wars, Cebuanos look forward to three years of cooperation, not continued intramurals.
