A city dad is new Legarda pointman. Shucks!

I visited my small garden in a mountain barangay few days ago. In going there, I used a road I normally don't take. In the same vein, when I came down from the mountains, I traveled on still another way.

Along the road, political advertisements literally bloomed, each one jostling for space. They were posted on walls, nailed on trees and attached to electric poles. Tarpaulin has become a preferred material although there were still cartolina, newsprint and even cloth.

Among the more dominant tarpaulins were those of candidate for vice president, Sen. Loren Legarda. They were huge and so very meticulously placed in frames that if the vice presidency were to be judged on the basis of the amount of work poured in putting them up, Sen. Legarda would be the run-away winner.

I became curious however by some oddity. All visible tarpaulins of Sen. Legarda were placed right on top of the materials of Cebu City Councilor Augustus Pe. There was obvious care in putting those materials close to each other. Assuming from the fact that their sizes were identical, they must have been produced by one printer, perhaps paid by one funder. And the manner by which they were placed demonstrated conscious effort. They, I mean the tarpaulins, were an odd couple considering they do belong to different political parties. Legarda, as we know, is the running mate of Sen. Manuel Villar of the Nacionalista Party while Pe, who is seeking reelection, is supposed to be aligned with the Liberal Party.

It dawned on me that the Cebu City councilor was responsible for placing those election propaganda. Legarda could not have gone to those remote places and shouted orders for her tarpaulin placed on top of Pe's. Surely, the city legislator could have orchestrated the placing of those advertisements.

As soon as I came home, I tried to validate my visual observation by making some calls to high-strung friends. A helpful gentleman, (I shall hide his identity by simply calling him Butch) gave me a startling revelation. Not very long ago, Butch informed me, the senator came to our city. Cebu City barangay captains composed her crowd. Those barangay chiefs were contacted by the city councilor and they met at a high-end hotel where some envelopes changed hands.

The city councilor is a known ally of the mayor. It is reputed that he does not do anything unless he gets it cleared by his boss. With that observation, it is not difficult to surmise that the act of the city councilor, in corralling the barangay captains and having them meet the senator, must have been previously approved by the mayor. To extend that assumption, it is thus safe to conjecture that the mayor must have a soft spot in his heart for the lady senator's electoral adventure.

If that were the present situation, I am getting very confused. Did not the mayor, before the onset of the election season, make clear his preference? Sen. Mar Roxas, not Sen. Noynoy Aquino, was his choice for president and if the former gave way to the latter, the mayor had to follow the path. Their political relations, dating decades back, was unassailable. The endorsement of Mayor Osmeña for Sen. Roxas was very clear to us Cebuanos.

But, if the recent indication showed that the mayor is endorsing, via the back door of course, Legarda, instead of Roxas, can we ask, what gives?

Surely there are serious repercussions brought about by this back door endorsement:

1. I often hear this quote "In politics, there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests" and I feel this is too well known an explanation is unnecessary. So, just let me ask the question if this principle applies here.

2. Only last week, the mayor accused a KUSUG candidate for councilor of such a sinister act as junking. Was he doing that to cover his act of junking Sen. Mar Roxas?

3. The support given by the LP city councilor to the NP vice presidential bet must have been motivated by many considerations not excluding financial. No wonder, he could afford to host the many bingo games in different barangays with prizes being announced to be coming from him.

4. I like to believe that a Cebu broadcaster has been the point man of the lady senator in our city. Is the alliance of the city councilor and the lady senator the reason why the radio man is getting a minor role in the operations of Legarda?

As in the tagalog "komiks" say, abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

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