Team Rama taking up Tom’s challenge

Ricky Poca

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is now complaining of harassment after a string of complaints was filed at the Office of the President and the Ombudsman by officials allied with Team Rama.

He claimed that the cases were backed by Presidential Assistant to the Visayas Michael Dino. I recalled the mayor challenging his political opponents to sue him, and now that they are doing this, Osmeña is complaining of harassment.

But the mayor should realize by now that the cases filed against him come with the territory.

He should know because his supporters filed several cases against former mayor Mike Rama that led to his suspension.

What Rama’s allies have done is giving the mayor a taste of his own medicine. Simply put, don’t do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.

Osmeña is lucky that he is given the right to answer the complaints against him as part of due process of law before the Office of the President hands down a decision.

The mayor should not fear if he believes that he has not committed any mistake, but apparently, the complaints are backed up with strong evidence.

In the event that Vice Mayor Labella assumes as mayor if Tomas gets suspended, that’s just an incidental consequence of the cases filed against him.

Just like when Rama and the vice mayor were suspended that allowed Councilor Margot Osmeña to become acting mayor.

I have heard through the grapevine that the mayor has a strong supporter in the administration of President Duterte, but unfortunately, the President’s men are embroiled in a fight among themselves.

Rama had no supporter in the past administration, and the former Interior secretary Mar Roxas was allied with Osmeña.

That was history and we should learn from it. It’s best for Osmeña to confront the situation at hand and answer the complaints with facts and evidence.

By crying harassment, Osmeña is insulting the capacity of the Office of the President to conduct and decide cases fairly.

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Lately, President Duterte’s administration is wracked with feuding among members of his Cabinet.

First, it was former Interior secretary Mike Sueno tangling with his three undersecretaries that resulted in his departure.

Now it is between Secretary Jun Evasco and an undersecretary over the issue of rice importation that saw the President sacking the undersecretary. Now it is revealed that the undersecretary is supported by Duterte’s adviser Bong Go.

It is indeed bothersome to see the President’s officials engage in a turf war among themselves, and it distracts the administration from its war against illegal drugs.

The President and his administration should not slow down in its war against illegal drugs because the drug menace is destroying and breaking up a lot of families in our country with many of its victims becoming a blight to the community.