Vagaries of politics

About a month or so ago, when it was reported that the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) was attending to the election protests of ex-congressman Tomas R. Osmeña and former vice mayor Joy Augustus Young against His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama and Vice Mayor Edgardo C. Labella, I wrote, in this column, a forecast of sort. I predicted that the former representative of the Cebu City south district would withdraw his protest. I foresaw that he would not await for the outcome of the electoral protest.

Some were unbelieving. Acknowledging the combative nature of the former legislator, they thought that the ex-solon would slug it out to the very end of the COMELEC proceedings. After all, they surmised, the protestant would not file an electoral contest if he did not believe in his cause.

I saw the protest quite differently. When they squared for the mayoralty position of the city in 2013, the margin garnered by Mayor Rama over ex-congressman Osmeña exceeded six thousand votes. It was not a close fight.  Not even by a known Cebu City standard set by Osmeña, himself, not very long ago. If I remember correctly, when he challenged then Mayor Alvin Garcia in 2001, he claimed that his victory, after an excruciatingly prolonged counting of more than two weeks, was a breeze. To him, it was a "no-contest." Yet, his margin against former Mayor Garcia was just about one half, if not less, of Mayor Rama's lead over him.

I then imagined that it was a statistical improbability for the protestant Osmeña to overhaul the gap between him and protestee Rama. To me, the ex-congressman must not have missed that fact. I thought that no matter how he traced his leaders to study the figures laboriously, he must have realized that reversing the result was but a dream in vain and pursuing the protest was an exercise in futility.

So, it came as my conclusion that the protestant would find a way to save face. That way was withdrawing his protest. If the protest were to stop, the election victory of Mayor Rama could not be finally validated. To some, doubts would still hang. There were other ifs to explore. No one could prevent ex-representative Osmeña to claim that had he pursued the protest, he would come out the winner. It was, therefore, to his advantage to halt the proceedings that could stamp the rightful seal of victory of Rama.

Last week, the news reports somehow made my forecast correct, by baring that the former solon filed a motion to withdraw the fund that was required of him vis-à-vis his protest. It would come to pass that had the fund been released, and the news on this matter was not clear, the protest, to a layman's mind, would be lost.

I however, thought that the protest of former vice mayor Young should have been allowed to continue. It would have been good for the city electors to find out that even if the lead of Vice Mayor Labella, was a measly less than 200 votes, (to my recollection), it was the decision of the city voters to make him vice mayor.

Yet, there is an angle why the protest of Young was, with the reported return of the fund for the process, effectively withdrawn. And I like to make it another forecast. Osmeña, who is believed to be running again for mayor against Rama in 2016, might have thought that the former vice mayor is a spent force and that is why he is going to junk him unceremoniously.

Oh! Such are the vagaries of election. While loyalty, of which Young is known for, to the extent that, out of his loyalty to Osmeña, he was made objects of unpalatable jokes, it can run second to ability to deliver votes.

The reports that the ex-legislator had been trying to woo the Honorable City Councilor Marry Ann de los Santos could end in his picking up the Lahug stalwart for his tandem as vice mayoralty candidate. That ability to deliver votes is a feather on the councilor's cap.

The ex-congressman must have done a great deal of a job to assuage the feelings of the lady councilor considering how he despotically treated her in the past. If the former lawmaker succeeds in courting the Hon. de los Santos to his side, it is just how politics works in our country.