17 hours Ago By Frank Malilong
Last week, I broke on this page the news of the twin decisions of the Office of the Ombudsman holding former Cebu City mayor Michael “Mike” Rama and five other City Hall officials criminally and administratively liable for awarding purchase orders for garbage collection to three private companies without the benefit of a public bidding during his aborted term. The dismissal was the second for Rama, who was ousted last year, also by the Ombudsman, for nepotism arising from his employment of two of his wife’s brothers in City Hall. At that time, little was mentioned about a looming criminal case against the ousted mayor involving the same set of facts.
Last Tuesday, Rama announced in a media forum that his lawyers had discovered a warrant of arrest issued against him by a court in San Carlos City and that he has posted bail in the amount of P270,000. The warrant was for the nepotism case. Unless he is able to obtain a reversal of the decision in the garbage case, Rama will go down in the history of Cebu City as the first mayor to have been dismissed and ordered arrested twice.
This is the handiwork of his political enemies, Malou Rama said of her husband’s plight. But they will not succeed because Rama’s woes only served to draw more people to his side. “The fight continues,” she said.
Rama shares his wife’s defiance. “Only death can stop my candidacy as mayor of Cebu City,” he declared even as he moaned his “endless persecution.” Neither Mike nor Malou identified the political enemies that both claimed are behind his series of legal setbacks.
He has two main rivals for the mayorship: Nestor Archival and Raymond Garcia. Both enjoy solid support by two Cebuano political heavyweights: former City Mayor Tommy Osmeña for Archival, who is his running mate, and Gov. Gwen Garcia for her nephew Raymond.
Rama has a contentious history with Osmeña but not with Archival. On the other hand, he has feuded with the governor and now openly dislikes Raymond, who succeeded him at City Hall after his dismissal and reversed many of his policies. Ironically, Rama had, in a way, a hand in Raymond’s replacing him as mayor.
He initially rejected Garcia as his running mate in 2022, preferring Dondon Hontiveros instead. But he eventually relented to the pressure from majority members of the Barug-Kusug-Panaghiusa alliance, who feared that with a fragmented administration coalition, they would lose to Margot Osmeña. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rama’s determination to finish the May 2025 race is beyond question. But there are so many imponderables in politics and even the toughest of men has a breaking point. It is in this light that the matter of who Rama despises the most and who between Archival and Garcia he suspects is behind his “persecution” is relevant.
Otherwise stated, who is number two to their number one among Rama’s supporters?.
