Cebu LPs insulting our intelligence!

The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) held the second of its series called Mega Cebu Candidates Fora, which started last April 10 and the second one was held last April 25 at the University of the Philippines (UP) Cultural Center, Lahug, Cebu. This is a private sector led forum because apparently, there are no groups hosting any debates for the local elections. Kudos to RAFI for hosting that event.

Last Thursday featured all Liberal Party (LP) candidates led by gubernatorial candidate Hilario Davide III, acting Gov. Agnes Magpale, Teresa P. Alegado, mayoralty bet for Consolacion, Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy, Provincial Board candidate, Efrain Pelaez Jr., mayoralty bet for Lapu-Lapu City and former Tourism Secretary Ace Durano who is running for Congress in the 5th District of Cebu. There were a lot of issues raised in the nearly three-hour program, but we cannot put them all in one column.

When it was my turn, I asked acting Gov. Agnes Magpale “Why didn’t she opt to run for Governor instead of settling for the post of Vice-Governor as she is acting Governor now and she is the most experienced candidate in the Province of Cebu… with all due respect to gubernatorial candidate Jun Davide?” Acting Gov. Magpale bluntly told the audience that it was a party decision, meaning the Liberal Party made the decision that she should run for Vice-Governor.

Then LP bet for Governor got the mike and told us exactly the same thing, that it was not for them to decide on what positions they would run, it was a party decision. I wanted to make a follow-up, but time had run out. Frankly speaking, it insults my intelligence that we are made to believe that the LP party made this decision. We know too well that political parties in this country are irrelevant as it plays second fiddle to personality politics.

I dare both acting Gov. Magpale and LP gubernatorial candidate Jun Jun Davide to tell us when and where did this party caucus happen, how many votes did Jun Davide get over acting Gov. Magpale? But I’m sure that they cannot answer this because if there was such an LP party caucus, it would have been splashed all over in the local papers. But we were not born yesterday. The decision for Jun Jun Davide to run for Cebu Governor was made by one man, Rep. Tomas Osmeña, the man behind Jun Jun Davide.

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I got an emailed response on our April 23 article about our PAL plane that was forced to turn circles around Talisay City before we were allowed to land. Apparently our reader experienced the same thing.

“Hi Bobit, I’m a constant reader of your column, both in the PhilSTAR and The Freeman. Like you, I’m a true bloodied Cebuano. Your column in PhilSTAR today, 04/23/13, re: suspended landing at Mactan Airport was also experienced by me last Thursday, 04/18/13. I was on Cebu Pac flight 5J575 from Manila when we were on descent for the final approach to Mactan Airport by 5:45pm, the plane aborted its landing and the pilot went on speaker informing us passengers that we have to delay our landing by 3 to 5 minutes to give way to a “special visitor” at the airport.

Our plane went around the mountainous area of Cebu for almost 5 minutes, then all of a sudden, the pilot again went on speaker informing us that he received another advise to hold for another 20 minutes because of the “special visitor” at the airport. Just imagine our agony circling around Cebu Island for almost 30 minutes to give way to that ‘special person’ who turned out to be P-Noy together with his people to attend the LP rally at the Provincial Capitol the next day!

It was so disgusting. Gone are the days of the No Wang-Wang! Maayo lang sa pag-sugod, karon hawod na kayo. Padaplin and tanan kay mu-agi si P-Noy. We are supposed to be his Boss, pero gipa-antos tuyok-tuyok sa kawanangan kai naa ang Sulogu-on! Maay gani, nothing happened to our plane at that time. I’m pretty sure that it had a domino effect for all Cebu flights incoming & outgoing to incur delays. Thank you. Elmer Ocaba [email protected].”

Allow me to translate the Cebuano part of his letter, “It was only good at the start, but these days, they lord it over. Everyone has to move aside because P-Noy is coming. We are supposed to be his Boss, but we had to circle around because the public servant is coming.” As we said, we experienced exactly the same thing on the following day in our PAL flight and allow me to mention that I was on the same row with  P-Noy’s Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa on that flight. I was told that Atty. Ochoa was a bit embarrassed that this happened on our flight. Kudos to the Executive Secretary for riding with us on the Caboose, the epitome of a true public servant!

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