Lito Osmeña: Seeking the votes of Visayans!

We’re now at the height of the political season. It is time to test the sentiments of the Filipino people especially us Cebuanos regarding the imbalance of many Senatorial candidates mostly coming from Luzon and almost nothing from the Visayas and Mindanao. This was the sentiment brought out last Sunday evening with our good friend, former Cebu Gov. Emilio “Lito” Osmeña who is running for Senator. He is number 39 in the list of Senatoriables. With us for that dinner were broadcast journalists from Mindanao. Lito wanted to air out his grievances on this obvious inequity where we always end up in the losing end. But we are so captivated by many senatoriables who woo us for this coming election. It is time to choose the senators that have the heart for Cebu or Visayas and Mindanao.

As Gov. Lito describes it, one senator is worth 20 congressmen. If you count the pork barrel of these 20 congressmen, just imagine how much Cebu could have gained from having more than one Cebuano senator. The Mindanao broadcasters who were very supportive of Lito and his “Probinsya Muna” advocacies wanted to know from Lito if we would be helping the candidacy of his estranged cousin Sen. Serge Osmeña. Without batting an eye, Lito said “Yes”! However I felt a reserved resentment from some of these people as they wanted to know whether Serge Osmeña gave a lot of projects for Cebu. The only one I could think of is the Skywalk spanning across Country Mall to the University of Cebu!

In that dinner at the Casino Español that the Mindanao broadcasters taped so they could air it in their respective radio stations, Lito Osmeña gave details about the Liberal Party (LP) that he said had a zero presence in Cebu and therefore they had no political machinery here. Actually the only LP in Cebu at that time was then Sen. John “Sonny” Osmeña.

Then someone threw the question why Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is now with the LP. Lito Osmeña pointed out that Tomas was never a Coryista because at the start of his political career when he first sought the Office of the Mayor of Cebu City, Pres. Cory anointed then OIC Boy Cuenco as her candidate for the Panaghiusa Party to run against Tommy Osmeña. That he wasn’t given any importance by Cory only motivated Tommy to work harder because a lot of Cebuanos then were for Tita Cory. But as history teaches us, Tomas Osmeña won the Mayorship of Cebu City.

I won’t forget the columns that Manong Max Soliven wrote even before the elections of 1988 when he predicted that Tommy would win saying, “If OIC Boy Cuenco isn’t careful he might just find his house collapsing because of Termite Tommy who sleeps within the barangays of the urban poor, slowly eating away at the very foundation of his house.” That column was written 22 years ago. I still remember it like it was yesterday because that was one of the reports I gave to Sir Max who took me in as his Bureau Chief for the Philippine Star.

So to the question why all of a sudden Mayor Osmeña is now supporting Noynoy Aquino, Lito told us that Tommy originally promised his support to Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas. But since he slid down to Vice-President, Mar and his brother Serge and Lito convinced him to join the Liberal Party and push for Noynoy Aquino. That was premised on the conditioned that Tommy’s fair haired boy, Councilor Hilario “Jun Jun” Davide Jr. would be the LP candidate to fight the incumbent Gov. Gwen F. Garcia.

Just when things were going very well for the LP, suddenly something happened that had Lito Osmeña totally disappointed with the Liberal Party. He said, “I opened the door for the LP to enter Cebu and told them that I would fund their political expenses. I gave Noynoy P500 thousand in cash and the LP P1 million so they could have funds to start their campaign. But when Jun Jun Davide choose the incumbent vice-governor Greg Sanchez as his runningmate, the least he could have done was consult me first before accepting Sanchez.” Indeed, it’s no secret that Lito Osmeña is at odds with his former supporter Greg Sanchez. Now LP lost a huge campaign contributor in Lito Osmeña.

So Lito Osmeña is running for the Senate not with the LP bandwagon, but with the PROMDI ticket. He believes that he can still woo the people who voted for him during the 1998 Presidential elections where he got 3,347,631 votes or 12.44% of the total votes cast where he landed in 4th place after Erap who won with 39.86% followed by then Speaker Jose de Venecia and Sen. Raul Roco. He even bested famous names like Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, Rene de Villa, Alfredo Lim and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. So what are the chances of Lito Osmeña? I’d say that if we Cebuanos band together and vote for the Cebuano senatoriables, then Lito has a very good chance of winning a Senate seat. So don’t forget, Lito is number 39!