Certifications

Before proceeding to my topic today, allow me to express my surprise on the act of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña, in talking about me, in a recent political campaign. My sources told me they too, were offended by the libelous language used by the mayor. According to them, they are prepared to execute affidavit if I desire to initiate legal action.

Reports carried by word of mouth usually get embellished. Some points too are removed. In that context, I like to view the report of Mayor Osmeña's unnecessary attack on my humble name. To give a twist to his malign, he was heard to have advised me to remove the words "His Honor" each time I write critical statements.

Sorry, mayor, I cannot heed your directive for me to be discourteous. In my family, we are raised to be respectful and courteous. I am too old to change ways. Perceiving that you are arrogant for which reason the Ombudsman sanctioned in that incident with a barangay captain, I have no more time to become arrogant.

Just the same, it is probably the mayor's cancer or what's left of it that makes him highly irritable. He cannot anymore tolerate anybody who finds his mismanagement worthy topic to speak or write about. Or who knows, it can be the difficult political battle waged by Mr. Jonathan Guardo that rattles him. So that, however the mayor might have maligned me, I can only understand his medical discomfiture and electoral uncertainty. Truth to tell, I have prayed to the Lord to forgive him. In fact, I also asked those who relayed to me the libel committed by the mayor to pray for his well-being.

 I may hate it but why am I inclined to believe the news story out of the camp of Mr. Guardo that the mayor is politically falling apart? Mayor Osmeña has seemingly lost his touch in the homestretch.

Imagine this. To overcome the impact of the missile obviously fired by Mr. Guardo against the mayor's health, the latter released an alleged certification dated sometime in 2009. To obviate the fact of the absence of a verifiable signature, his trumpeters claimed that it was a computer printout! Cute.

But of course, city hall handlers had to draw the attention of the public to the certification's being a printout only. I could not miss this ancient military strategy. Such a gambit was designed in order that the people would not scrutinize the date of its purported issuance. By golly, if the group of Mayor Osmeña wanted to appease the discomfort of the voters on account of his health, they could have made it to appear as a recent certification rather than 2009. Perhaps, owing to our lack of complete education on the disease, we perceive that cancer before it is discovered to have metastasized bears no indication of its incurability.

 Still yesterday, two certifications carried a disturbing implication. I am speaking of the certifications released by congressional candidate Rachel Marguerite del Mar. We know that this was an attempt to dodge the effect of an earlier political advertisement candidate Mary Ann de los Santos. Ms. Del Mar wanted to show that she finished some college program!

What Ms. del Mar did was actually an affront on the dignity of the mayor. Since late 1987, when the mayor first launched his political career here in our city, he has been prodded to produce a document to back up his claim that he finished a college degree. For his own reasons, he never did. We had never seen even the shadow of that diploma.

Candidate del Mar should not have done that to the party's top honcho if she had respect for our city chief executive. She put the mayor in an inexplicable situation. People who had been clamoring for the mayor to put to a final test, questions of his academic preparations are now encouraged by Ms. Del Mar. They will refer to this courageous act of hers to goad the mayor into doing the same. And the mayor will have no reason to keep his diploma in his old chest, if it exists.