One more to go

To many, it was a foregone conclusion. Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) bets swept their opponents away in the recently held Sangguniang Kabataan Federation elections (SKF) with an 8-0 win.

Jessica Resch of Barangay San Nicolas Proper, who was elected president over the opposition’s bet Sonia Cal of Barangay Tisay by a margin of 10 votes, will sit as ex-officio member of the City Council at noon of June 30.

The 21-year-old Resch was magnanimous in victory.

The industrial engineering graduate of the University of San Carlos said that one of her priorities is to unify all 80 SK chairpersons in the city. “I want us to be comfortable when communicating and working together. I am not looking for any boundaries,” she said.

Ah, so young and already talking like a seasoned politician.

Meanwhile, the word SunStar Cebu’s Rona T. Fernandez used to describe Cal’s reaction to her defeat was “unfazed.”

Apparently, the 22-year-old tourism management graduate from the Cebu Institute of Technology-University had already seen the writing on the wall.

BOPK indeed had the upper hand in terms of numbers. It has 45 SK chairpersons compared to the opposition’s 35.

“But nevertheless, we are still open to working with the team. We are one family and we expect that the SKF should have equal service for everyone and maintain being non-partisan,” said Cal, who must have memorized this spiel on the eve of the polls.

Opposition Councilor Raymond Garcia, too, was not surprised by the outcome.

“We were already at a disadvantage in terms of numbers after the barangay and SK elections, but I’d like to congratulate the winner,” he said.

But I was surprised by what Mayor Tomas Osmeña said afterward.

Even if the odds seemed stacked in his group’s favor, the mayor will leave no stone unturned to secure that second ex-officio seat in the council.

The outgoing Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) president, reelected Tisa Barangay Captain Philip Zafra, is allied with the opposition. The ABC election isn’t until July.

“We’re not exactly the majority yet because (Councilor James Anthony) Cuenco can always withdraw his appeal and he can be replaced by another opposition candidate. We have to get both (SKF and ABC),” Osmeña said.

Cuenco is appealing his dismissal by the anti-graft office for his involvement in the implementation of a medicine assistance program charged to the pork barrel of his father, former Cebu City congressman Antonio Cuenco.

The mayor’s doggedness reminds of a friend’s 11th commandment: “Thou shall not confiance.”