Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
Cebu Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale said she’s ready to “retire anytime” and has no plans to run for governor in 2016.
Magpale said this in reaction to statements of Toledo City Mayor John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña who questioned her frequent medical missions in remote barangays in the province as “early campaigning.”
“As I said from my heart, I am not running for governor” Magpale told reporters in Danao City, her hometown, after yesterday’s inauguration of new surgical facilities in a province-ran hospital there.
“In fact, I already asked the (Liberal) Party, I talked to the governor (Hilario Davide III) that if there is somebody who can replace me, I am willing to retire,” the 72-year-old Magpale said.
The Toledo city mayor questioned her provincial storties in remarks during the launch of the Global Business Power Corp.’s new 82-MW coal-fired power plant in Toledo City last Friday. Both of them attended the event.
Firefly
Osmeña, who ran as an independent candidate in the May 2013 polls, acknowledged Magpale as the “governor” of the province.
“I said governor because she’s already busy going around Cebu campaigning. She’s denying it… but what walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is a duck,” the mayor was quoted as saying. He also compared the vice governor to an “aninipot” or a firefly in a later interview.
Magpale quickly denied the allegation in her speech at the same event, saying she was only representing the governor in the launch.
At the time, Governor Davide was attending to appointments in the Capitol.
“Sometimes, the governor sends me to these events in behalf of the province because he trusts me,” Magpale said yesterday.
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