Lakas-Kampi CMD standard-bearer Gibo Teodoro and Cebu governor Gwen Garcia. Photo courtesy of Freeman.
As the elections are drawing to a close, administration candidates are on a frenzy, consolidating themselves to ensure that administration presidential candidate Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro will make it to the top.
With him would be another six years of security for the interests of his supporters.
Because of Gibo’s dismal performance in the polls, trailing behind, as ridiculous as it may sound, convicted plunderer Joseph “Erap” Estrada, many had found it best for their selfish interest to bolt the administration party and lick the feet of the leading candidates – either with the one with a Messianic complex (he claims to be the savior of the country, this despite his blatant denial to solve his own land problem) or the other with a questionable intention and somewhat shady transactions as a shadow.
Still there are a few good men who are true to the essence of loyalty. And to think that one of those who organized their so-called Team Palabra de Honor showed that he had no word of honor by bolting at the last minute.
With this apparent crisis at hand, 45 governors and a number of incumbent Congressmen, are meeting today, April 20, in Cebu to check among themselves if they have a thread of word of honor, after all word of honor is the reason why they’re supposed to be leaders.
On the lead is Cebu’s very own Gwen Garcia, who openly declared her unflinching support, by hook or by crook, to Gibo. Why continue supporting a candidate that’s performing dismally in surveys?
Well, with the more than 900,000 votes that the Garcias gave Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2004 Presidential Elections, they are more than confident that such a feat can again be accomplished for their pet candidate. And with that would be the apparent victory of Cebu’s favorite presidential candidate, Gibo Teodoro.
Why Gibo?
According to Governor Garcia, she saw in Gibo what she saw in her running mate, Glenn Soco, youthful dynamisn, idealism and vibrancy which is what our country would need in order to rise from the sea of garbage that another presidential candidate desires to put the country in. Or was it to remove the country from. Well, with leaders cheating the country of the money that it tried so hard to borrow from institutionalized international Bombays, as the small vendors would put it (no discrimination intended), then swimming in a sea of garbage is a very near future.
But, before I end my rant, one thing was brought to my attention by a friend. It seems that if Garcia would be able to deliver votes for Gibo, then this could mean that they would maintain their grasp and influence in the country, and possibly, to the horror of many government workers – the extension of Winston Garcia’s tenure in the Government Service and Insurance System.
So, it would mean that if Cebuano government workers and pensioners hate themselves so much that they would desire to continue suffering under the hands of Winston Garcia, then they would go for the candidate that the Garcia’s would endorse, in this case, Gibo.
However, should they wish to remove Winston Garcia from GSIS, then they’d go for other candidates.
Well, don’t get me wrong. I still maintain that Winston Garcia has the best intentions for GSIS, and mind you, he knows what he is doing.
So, all these delays in pension payments, all the cancellation of loan privileges, all the unfair loans that’s being offered by the government pension fund corporation, all these are for a reason, and that is to ensure its continuing existence and save it from possible bankruptcy.
In fact, in 2008 he was able to miraculously increase the earnings of the agency by 21.35 percent at an average of P297.39 billion a year, according to BizNewsAsia.
Well, that still doesn’t explain the hundreds of thousands in salary and other benefits that the president and general manager is enjoying.
So, will Cebu allow Gwen and the Garcia’s to deliver votes for Gibo? That still remains to be seen. Now, let Gwen take the helm in springing Gibo to the highest seat in the land.
Palabra de honor.
I would agree that Gwen’s continued support for Gibo is a matter of palabra-de-honor, though i think that its just lip service. The way i see it, the Garcias have really jumped over to Villar’s camp after the administration party failed to deliver the campaign funds that they thought would come. They just didn’t want to make it obvious because of palabra-de-honor. That 1M votes that they promised to deliver for Gibo is just wishful thinking! With the issues of corruption that the governor have been faced with, and the recent controversy of the Balili property and coal ash dump, its unlikely that the majority of the cebuanos will be supportive of their candidates or their own bid for reelection, though it might be different at the national level. To the cebuanos, vote intelligently!!!