THE political opposition in Cebu province may have wanted to skirt it, but with Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia naming her newly formed party One Cebu, there is no more evading the Sugbuak issue.

The attempt to break up Cebu into four provinces, as contained in bills sponsored by Reps. Clavel Asas-Martinez, Antonio Yapha and Simeon Kintanar, was the most contentious issue in the province in the past couple of years.
And since anti-Sugbuak forces successfully blocked the passage of the bills and by extension the holding of a plebiscite on
the matter, the May political exercise may as well be considered a referendum on the issue.

The political opposition has grudgingly recognized this, with Kintanar saying that candidates for congressional seats in Cebu can make the proposal to create provinces out of their districts a crucial issue in the polls.

Winning chances

How this will affect their chance of winning, however, is still a matter of conjecture although one should say that other factors like funding and organization will determine the outcome of the elections.

The bigger problem is with former senator John “Sonny” Osmeña, who is widely regarded as the brains behind the Sugbuak move and is running under the banner of the United Opposition.

Osmeña needs to get the support not only of voters in the province but also in Cebu City, but with the Sugbuak issue polarizing Cebuanos, he will possibly only get the support of the pro-Sugbuak voters.

This early, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who still has to find an opponent in his reelection bid, has fired the initial salvo by raising the Sugbuak scare and promoting the line that Sonny winning would mean the success of the effort to split Cebu.

Enlightenment

We therefore expect more verbal exchanges on the Sugbuak, which in the end will be good in the sense that debates will help enlighten the public on the ramifications of creating new Cebu provinces.

Note that it took so long for the proponents to come out and explain to the Cebuanos the rationale of their proposals and when they did come out the explanation merely whetted the appetite of the public for more.

The campaign will thus force them to provide additional explanations.