A collision in Cebu? GMA and FPJ will both arrive Friday in that Queen City of the South

Did their campaign managers get their schedules mixed up, or is there some carefully-engineered reason for President Macapagal-Arroyo and her leading challenger, Fernando Poe Jr., being slated to arrive in Cebu City on the same day?

At this moment, that’s the sche-dule. FPJ will fly into Cebu Friday morning. The President will also plane into Cebu early in the morning the same day. At least the Supreme Court has ruled with finality yesterday that FPJ is a bonafide, fully-certified natural-born Pinoy – but will the Cebuanos "adopt" him as one of their own? Cebu is already, reputedly "GMA country". Ronnie Poe is facing an uphill fight there, where even his friend, former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, came in third despite his landslide victories elsewhere.

If there’s any candidate with some influence in Cebu, outside of the calculated frontrunner there, GMA, it’s LDP candidate, Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, who was named an "adopted son of Cebu" during his successful stint there as Police Metro-discom Commander.

That’s where Lacson first demonstrated his kamay na bakal (malled-fist) approach to crime by squashing the kidnappers of the son of one of the richest department store chain owners in a shoot-out at the Maribago Blue Water resort (where the desperados were concealing their hostage). In short, Ping blew the kidnappers away, personally and with finality, and rescued the boy unharmed.

For years thereafter, no kidnapper dared step into Cebu. But even Ping, adopted son or not, may have to yield to La Gloria in Cebu.

To begin with, Ping’s original bosom friend, Tough Tommy Osmeña, Hizzoner the Mayor, is wholeheartedly supporting GMA. (Tommy’s first cousin, former Governor Emilio "Lito" Osmeña, though, is enthusiastically backing up ex-Senator, ex-Education Secretary Raul Roco.) Lito’s brother, John "Sonny" Osmeña, who had fulsomely backed Erap during the impeachment trial (ex-balato twin), is now running for re-election as Senator on the GMA Lakas-CMD ticket. Those Osmeñas are everywhere, on every ticket.

Indeed, Sonny is allegedly not even campaigning for his own son, "John-John" Osmeña, who’s running for Governor, purportedly on the same free-for-all Lakas ticket, because John-John had not consulted daddy Sonny. Anyway, John-John is batting for GMA, while Sonny (papa John) doesn’t seem to care about courting the Cebu vote, since he – though a native son – came in only 15th there when he won, elsewhere, his earlier Senate seat.

What complicates matters for GMA is that the daughter of the incumbent Governor Pabling Garcia – namely, Gwen Garcia – is also running for Governor and is openly supporting GMA, too. Does this mean that Gwen also belongs to Lakas-CMD?

And what about the third candidate for Governor, former Congressman Celestino "Junie" Martinez of Cebu’s 4th district (whose mother is an Espinosa from Masbate), a guy tough enough to have defied the Duranos when they were the kingpins of Paltik country? Junie and his wife, the current 4th district Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez, a former "Miss Caltex", are also supporting GMA.

With so many of her supporters running for the same post of Cebu Governor, La Presidenta will arrive in Cebu in a quandary, as for the pecking order on her entablado. Whom will The Fountain (of political advantage) bless? The President may have to declare Cebu a political "free zone", which is very risky, since hell hath no fury like a political "lover" scorned.

Being so popular with the local political powers – when they’re tilting with each other – can be a head-splitting proposition.

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What a whirl to be back in Manila!

I had lunch with ABS-CBN’s Top Boss, Gabby Lopez, to discuss our joint Philippine STAR/ABS-CBN coverage of the elections, and my television show on ANC/ABS-CBN Impact 2004.

No, Gabby smiled, but declined to comment on the . . . uh, Dolphy question, or how my longtime movie-TV idol had found himself – while I was out in Spain – ejected from his Home along da airport, not too long after moving over from his bahay along da riles.

Dolphy is now on the campaign trail with his buddy FPJ and may become his Chief of Staff, Protocol Officer, Executive Secretary, Appointments Secretary, or Secretary of Public Welfare? I once asked Dolphy why he himself didn’t run for President. And he replied: "Madaling tumakbo – it’s easy to run – but what will happen to the Philippines if I win?"

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I also got off my Air France flight from Paris in time to attend our weekly Tuesday Club meeting in the EDSA Plaza hotel.

I’ll have to give kudos to Air France for that hassle-free flight which sped my wife and me home from the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to the Ninoy Aquino International airport in just 14 hours. The cabin staff was friendly, courteous, and efficient, and the food was delicious. (Don’t jump to any conclusions about a freebie – as I usually have to say when I praise something – this matipid na Ilocano paid for his own tickets, or our company did anyway, which is the same thing.)

The sad news, of course, is that Air France will soon revise its convenient direct flights – Manila-Paris-Manila – to daily flights, but via Bangkok.

At the Tuesday Club, among the old friends encountered there was Karl Robert Wilson, now Bureau Chief of the Agence France-Presse. I had invited Karl to join our Club. Karl and I were both old hands from Hong Kong. I had been writing a weekly column for The South China Morning Post, while Wilson was Editor of the rival Hong Kong Standard, then owned by Sally Aw Sian of the old Tiger Balm dynasty.

At our breakfast, too, was former congressman/Senator and ex-DENR Secretary Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez who was spokesman of the Lakas-CMD until he was strangely and unceremoniously "bumped off" the Lakas slate to give way for the entry of ex-Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Now Sonny is running as an "Independent" Senatorial candidate. But he says he hopes to win with the help of friends from all political parties. Good luck, Sonny! You’ve got guts and moxie, but winning as an Independent in this country means you believe in miracles – whereas the "miracles" produced by the Comelec are of a less admirable and heaven-sent variety.

In any event, it’s good to be back home in this Land of Confusion and where the balimbing is the national fruit, and our politicians are the national fruitcakes.

We, journalists, of course, are the national irritations – gadflies sometimes posing, without reason, as godlike in virtue and powers of prognostication.

Martial law and imprisonment taught me two good truths: One is that, when you’re in jail, you can count your real friends on your fingers; and, secondly, that the pen is not mightier than the sword.

It was a humbling, but enriching experience.

So now, on with the show!

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ABSURD ERRATA in yesterday’s column from Paris: The late Generalissimo Franco was El Caudillo (The Chief or Der Fuehrer in Spanish) not El Candillo. He was a tough military disciplinarian, not a candle in the wind . . . Next, horrors, I referred to "philandering" husbands, not "plundering" husbands who cheated on their wives (and played when wifey was away). Their slang-name is "de Rodriguez". The third and most awful proofreading and copyreading error was in the phrase, "Poor Bush. He charged into the fray and found only FLIES in the desert," not "flics" for heaven sakes! (Les flics is the insulting French slangword for cops or gendarmes) Tant pis! As they screech in France.