Former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama (second from left) and Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella (right) discuss their group’s change of name from Barug Team Rama to Partido Barug during a press briefing at the Casino Español on Tuesday.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
BARUG Team Rama no more.
Cebu City’s opposition camp led by former mayor and now a vice mayoral candidate, Michael Rama, received accreditation from the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) for Partido Barug as a legitimate political party in the Visayas on December 7.
According to Rama, the founder and President of Partido BARUG, the dropping of his family name from the political party would ensure that the team would be ideology-based instead of personality-based.
“We don’t want the party to be associated with a family or to only one family. We want to be associated with service,” said Rama during the launching of the Partido Barug on Tuesday (December 11).
Partido Barug is a Visayas-based political party aiming to have members not only in Cebu City but also in Cebu province and other provinces such as Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor.
Rama said that localizing the political party would be a preparation for the possibility of a federal government replacing the current republican system.
“We will need a local party that will address the needs of the local people,” said Rama.
Partido Barug is in alliance with the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), the political party of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella, president of the PDP-Laban Cebu Chapter, said that the renaming the party from Barug Team Rama to Partido Barug would only show unity among the members of the party.
Labella, who will be running as mayor for the May 2019 elections and the standard bearer for Partido Barug-PDP Laban, said that the alliance between the two parties has become stronger.
Councilor Joel Garganera, who is seeking re-election in the May 2019 midterm election, said he was confident that their group would get the president’s support because of their alliance with PDP-Laban.
The President has yet to declare support for any Cebu City electoral candidate or political party.