Cebu City Councilor (1992–2001) Rama began his political career in 1992 when he ran for office as
City Councilor from
Cebu City's 2nd (South) District as a member of Mayor
Tomas Osmeña's
Bando Osmeña – Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK), succeeding his uncle, veteran city councilor Clemente "Cle" G. Rama. Rama served for three terms until 2001, during which he was also appointed chairman of the Area Vocational Rehabilitation Center II Advisory Council.
Vice Mayor (2001–2010) After incumbent Mayor
Alvin Garcia bolted BOPK to form his own political party,
Kugi Uswag Sugbo (KUSUG), Rama was tapped by former Mayor Tomas Osmeña as his
running mate and vice mayoral candidate for the
2001 Cebu City local elections. The tandem won both positions, with Rama defeating KUSUG's bet, re-electionist Vice Mayor Renato Osmeña. He was also appointed chairman of several government and non-government agencies, including the city's Zoning Board, Tourism Commission, Police Coordinating and Advisory Council (PCAC), and People's Law Enforcement Board (PLEB). BOPK-aligned
barangay captains also issued a manifesto contesting Osmeña's choice of Rama as BOPK's 2010 mayoral bet, asking Osmeña to instead endorse his sister, Georgia Osmeña, who was also running for mayor. The call was backed by former senator
Sonny Osmeña, fellow mayoral candidate and Tomas's estranged cousin, and by KUSUG councilor candidate
Raymond Alvin Garcia, who Rama defeated in the 2007 vice mayoral race. Rama's first term was marked by a growing political rift with then-Congressman Osmeña over various issues, similar to the previous fallout between Osmeña and former Vice Mayor Garcia. Notable incidents included Rama conducting "loyalty checks" on Osmeña appointees, sidelining BOPK officials in favor of the opposition KUSUG during the mass oathtaking of newly-elected
Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials, and legal cases filed against Rama by BOPK allies over his allegedly indiscriminate demolition of houses along Mahiga Creek. On June 2, 2011, Rama announced his departure from BOPK, with which he was affiliated for 13 years, while remaining a member of its national affiliate, the
Liberal Party (LP). Osmeña responded that BOPK members had become dissatisfied with Rama's way of running the city government. Rama opposed the proposal, stating in a September 4, 2012 letter to President
Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III that flyovers were "not the ultimate solution to the traffic congestion" and that nearby businesses would be adversely affected, advocating instead for road widening and opening alternative routes. Osmeña attempted to reallocate the funding to road widening projects in the south district, which was blocked once again by Rama. Eventually, Osmeña redirected the funds to
Cebu 1st district Rep.
Eduardo "Eddie" Gullas, to be used on road widening projects from
Carcar to
Sibonga, despite a years-long dispute between the two stemming from then-
Talisay City Mayor Gullas' claims over 50 hectares of the
South Road Properties (SRP). The Rama-Labella tandem defeated Osmeña's mayoral comeback bid and unseated incumbent Vice Mayor Young, with Rama winning 217,448 votes to Osmeña's 211,072 votes, breaking BOPK's long-held electoral dominance. In 2015, Osmeña again criticized Rama regarding the SRP—a landmark project by Osmeña in the 1990s—accusing Rama of mismanaging government funds by selling valuable SRP lots for immediate funds instead of allowing the city to benefit from their long-term revenue. Osmeña also highlighted what he described as the depletion of city funds under Rama, contrasting it with the surplus of PHP 2.4 billion (USD 43.13 million) he left at the end of his term in 2010. In November 2015, Osmeña sued Rama and 19 other city officials and employees before the Ombudsman for
graft and
procurement violations over the reconstruction of
Carbon Market Unit 2. Osmeña alleged
collusion between officials and bidders to award the PHP 167 million (USD 3 million) project to Geety Realty and Development Corp. (GRDC), which was purportedly unqualified to handle government projects exceeding PHP 100 million (USD 1.8 million). The complaint also claimed that the city was billed before the project's commencement, in violation of the
Local Government Code's (R.A. 7160) prohibition on advance payments, and that GRDC falsified tax permits. On July 30, 2018, the Office of the Ombudsman resolved to file cases against Rama and seven others; however, this was subsequently reversed by Ombudsman
Samuel Martires, who dismissed the case for lack of merit on November 8, 2021. Rama sought a third and final consecutive term in the
2016 elections, filing his certificate of candidacy with his running mate Labella and other Team Rama's candidates on October 16, 2015. While Rama's allies won a majority of city council seats and Labella secured a second term as vice mayor, Rama lost the mayoral race to Osmeña by 33,894 votes. The COMELEC granted a manual recount of 20 percent of the votes, which failed to overturn the results.
Hiatus from office (2016–2019) On August 6, 2016, President
Rodrigo Duterte named Rama a protector of
drug lords. Duterte repeated the accusation in 2017. Rama denied the allegations on several occasions, stating that Duterte had been misinformed. Rama was later removed from Duterte’s narco-list in 2019. A majority of Team Rama's officials
switched political parties from UNA to
PDP-Laban, the new ruling party led by Duterte, on August 27, 2016. Rama was not included in the induction of new members due to his then-inclusion on Duterte's narco-list, with then-
House Speaker and PDP-Laban Secretary General
Pantaleon Alvarez commenting that "the crime of one [is] not the fault [of] all." The rivalry between Rama and Osmeña persisted, with Osmeña referring to Team Rama—later renamed Barug Team Rama—as "Team Suyop" (
lit. "Team Inhale", referencing Rama's drug allegations) and "Team Babag" ("Team Obstructionist"). In response, Barug city councilor Joy Pesquera filed a
cyber-libel case against Osmeña over the "Team Suyop" label on May 13, 2018. In November 2017, Team Rama rebranded as "Barug PDP-Laban" ahead of the
2019 elections. Party members announced the new name publicly but acknowledged the renaming occurred without Rama’s approval, as he was still excluded from PDP-Laban. Rama questioned the decision. On October 17, 2018, Barug members filed their candidacies for the 2019 elections. Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella, term-limited in his position, ran for mayor, while Rama ran for vice mayor. Barug won the May 13 elections decisively, with Labella unseating Osmeña, Rama returning as vice mayor for a fourth term, and Barug securing a council majority with nine of sixteen seats. The winning candidates were proclaimed over two-day period following election night, with the delay due to technical issues.
Vice Mayor and stints as Acting Mayor (2019–2021) In 2019, speculation arose about a possible reconciliation and a potential
2022 team-up between Rama and Osmeña, after both aligned on several issues—most notably, their opposition to proposed changes to the
Cebu Bus Rapid Transit System (CBRT) system and concerns over the alleged undue influence of Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino on Mayor Labella. Rama dispelled the rumors in a December 13, 2019 interview, publicly reaffirming his opposition to Osmeña just four days after the latter filed a graft case against him over the 2015 sale of a 45-hectare South Road Properties (SRP) lot. Further tensions arose between Rama and Labella, with Rama criticizing Labella's management of the city and handling of the
COVID-19 pandemic response. In April 2020, Rama accused Labella of disregarding the city council's part in policymaking and attempting to run the city by executive order. Rama also questioned at least seven of Labella's executive orders, citing alleged neglect by the executive branch as a major contributor to the spread of the virus in Cebu City. Throughout the pandemic, Rama continued to criticize Labella's leadership, with little personal communication between the two despite both publicly maintaining that they remained friends and political allies. Rama accused Labella of not being visible and active enough in the city's pandemic response, of being absent amidst a spike of cases in the city, and of concealing his own state of health during his medical leaves. In response, Labella accused Rama of playing politics—an allegation Rama denied. On February 10, 2021, Labella appointed Rama as the city’s vaccine czar and chairman of the vaccination board; Rama, however, declined the title and instead referred to himself as the board’s "convenor." • February 8 to 10, while recovering from his previous ear infection • May 31 to June 13, due to mild
pneumonia • June 9, for around 3 weeks afterward, due to sepsis • July 14 to August 10, due to persistent cough, pneumonia, and a mild
stroke • September 20 to October 8, extended to indefinite leave due to health complications In July 2024, the city council questioned Rama's authority to preside over council meetings while serving as acting mayor, as first-ranked Councilor
Dondon Hontiveros should have been acting vice mayor—and thus the council's presiding officer—while Rama was acting mayor. Rama responded that he did not receive formal communications from Labella's office regarding the latter's medical leaves. Rama assumed the office of mayor the following day, November 20, with Hontiveros succeeding him as vice mayor, both taking their oath of office before
Court of Appeals Associate Justice Gabriel Ingles.
Return as Mayor (2021–2024) , House Speaker
Martin Romualdez, Cebu Gov.
Gwen Garcia, Cebu City Reps.
Cutie del Mar and Edu Rama, and other national and local officials. Rama, now a member of PDP-Laban, filed his candidacy for mayor in the
May 9, 2022 elections on October 9, 2021, with majority floor leader and city councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia as his running mate. They led a coalition between Rama's Barug PDP-Laban, Garcia's KUSUG, and the newly-revived
Partido Panaghiusa under longtime campaign manager and former city councilor Jose "Joey" Daluz III. The Rama-Garcia tandem, which endorsed the
UniTeam led by presidential candidate
Bongbong Marcos and vice-presidential candidate
Sara Duterte, was also endorsed by outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte on April 2, 2022. Rama defeated two city councilors to win a full term as mayor, winning 226,328 votes over BOPK candidate
Margot Osmeña's 190,836 votes and independent candidate Dave Tumulak's 132,510 votes. Rama tested positive for COVID-19 on August 2, 2022. He attributed his asymptomatic status to being
fully vaccinated with booster shots, encouraging others to get vaccinated as well. On September 29, 2022, Rama was elected PDP-Laban Vice President for the Visayas during the party's 40th anniversary and general assembly held in
Pasay City, having already been president of its Cebu City chapter. On November 9, 2022, Rama denied allegations by residents of Lot 937 in Sitio San Miguel, Barangay Apas that the city government did not help them after property developer Century Horizons, represented by then-former Congressman
Edgar Erice,
demolished 167 households to make way for a property development. Rama said that that he was addressing the residents' requests for help, but declined to disclose what action he was taking. Many of the displaced residents were eventually relocated in 2024, with the Cebu provincial government (under Governors
Junjun Davide and Gwen Garcia) providing relocation sites and financial assistance. Former mayor Tomas Osmeña once again publicly criticized Rama during an October 21, 2023 press conference, stating he would support anyone who ran against Rama in 2025—even saying he would "rather vote for [his] dog" than for Rama. Osmeña cited the PHP 3 billion (USD 54 million) spent on the still-incomplete and allegedly overpriced
Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC), comparing it to the PHP 6 billion (USD 108 million) he had spent to complete the South Road Properties (SRP) project during his own tenure. He further claimed that the city suffered a long-term revenue loss after Rama sold 50 hectares of SRP land to
Ayala Corporation and
SM Supermalls, allegedly losing PHP 6 billion in projected earnings per hectare. Osmeña also accused Rama of favoring the two corporations by reducing the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit System (CBRT) route from 25 kilometers (Bulacao to Talamban) to just 12 kilometers (
SM Seaside to
Ayala Center), arguing the shortened route would benefit the supermalls at the expense of city commuters. Rama declined to comment on Osmeña's criticisms. In March 2024, Rama filed an administrative complaint before the
Office of the President of the Philippines (OP) against Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia, after the latter stopped the construction of a CBRT station in front of the
Cebu Provincial Capitol. Rama alleged that Garcia committed
abuse of power by interfering with a national infrastructure project under the
Department of Transportation (DOTr), while Garcia responded that she was protecting the cultural and historical integrity of the Capitol, a historical landmark. This resulted in Garcia resigning from PDP-Laban on May 28, citing "irreconcilable conflict" and Rama's position as PDP-Laban's Vice President for Visayas. On October 30, the OP dismissed Rama's complaint, citing insufficient evidence. After Rama demolished two of the city's ten
pedestrian overpasses in March 2024 and replace them with
pedestrian underpasses, Osmeña accused Rama of incompetence, as the overpasses' demolition left the affected areas without an accessible
pedestrian crossing. Osmeña highlighted that Rama previously opposed the overpasses' construction sponsored by the late Rep.
Raul del Mar in favor of flared intersections with
at-grade crossings, only to still not have built the first one five years later, with underpasses taking even longer to complete. Rama responded that the overpasses had become outdated and inaccessible to
persons with disabilities (PWDs) with limited mobility, as well as serving as sleeping quarters for
beggars and dumping grounds for
human waste. On April 11, 2024, Rama cancelled an April 2 order to relocate the Cebu City Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA), following a request from Councilor Jun Alcover. Rama said that he would investigate how he signed the memo (on the request of the City Treasurer's Office), citing the large amount of papers he had to sign daily as mayor. Rama's decision to cancel the move was praised by Alcover and OSCA Head Homer Cabaral. On April 20, 2024, Rama ordered a fact-finding investigation after Alcover accused City Agriculture Department (CAD) Head Joelito Baclayon of negligence. Alcover, in an April 4 privilege speech, accused Baclayon of failing to prepare for El Niño and underutilizing CAD's budget from the previous year. Baclayon questioned Alcover's allegations, saying the CAD did not receive a complaint from any of the city's farmers; Alcover responded by calling Baclayon a liar, showing the media pictures of farmers' crops destroyed by the El Niño droughts. Rama initially threw his support behind Baclayon, but eventually said an investigation would be fair to Alcover while allowing Baclayon to defend himself. Garcia eventually replaced Baclayon as City Agriculturalist in late 2024.
Singapore-like vision During his inaugural address on June 30, 2022, Mayor Michael Rama announced his vision for a “
Singapore-like Cebu City,” inspired by a recent trip to Singapore and centered on mass transit, sustainability, infrastructure, housing, and digitalization projects. On February 13, 2023, Rama unveiled a replica of Singapore’s
Merlion in Carbon Market, the city’s largest public market, which received mixed reactions. The "Singapore-like" vision drew criticism for allegedly lacking clear and specific targets, prioritizing large-scale projects despite limited city cash reserves, and being overly ambitious at the expense of day-to-day governance and basic service delivery. Following official visits to
Melbourne in December 2023 and
Taiwan in March 2024, Rama expanded the slogan to “Singapore-like Cebu City with Melbourne features and Taiwan training.” The revised slogan was met with further criticism; editorials in local newspapers described the plans as overambitious and impractical, arguing that Cebu City should focus on becoming the best version of itself rather than emulating other cities. Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia also publicly criticized the slogan. News media also noted growing public mockery of the branding, with terms such as “Singa
pool-like Cebu” circulating during floods and “Singa
poor-like Cebu” in the context of garbage collection issues. The slogan was widely panned online as out of touch with the city's real needs. In July 2024, the
Commission on Audit (COA), in its 2023 audit report, stated that Cebu City lacked the cash to sustain Rama’s "Singapore-like" vision. The report flagged the city’s income projections over the past five years as consistently “unrealistic,” calling the 2023 fiscal year “the most aggressive.” The controversial slogan was eventually dropped on October 9, 2024, when newly assumed Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia, on his first day in office, announced its retirement in favor of a renewed focus on Cebu City’s own identity. Garcia emphasized Cebu’s long history as a civilization, predating that of Singapore. Garcia announced that he would adopt a more diplomatic approach to the city's issues as acting mayor, compared to what he labeled as Rama's more aggressive style. Although Rama initially affirmed on February 17 that Garcia would remain his vice mayoral candidate for 2025, he later criticized Garcia's leadership and policy direction as acting mayor with increasing frequency. Rama accused Garcia of overstepping the bounds of an acting mayor—a claim Garcia denied—and of failing to uphold a prior agreement not to interfere with Rama's policies. Garcia admitted to the growing distance between him and Rama on June 17, saying that he "no longer [felt] positive" about Rama's frequent criticisms, even as he still viewed Rama as a friend. Garcia was noticeably absent from a Barug gathering on June 12, where Rama hinted towards picking acting vice mayor Dondon Hontiveros as his 2025 running mate instead. On September 23, Garcia was announced as party president of the newly-revived KUSUG party, succeeding his father Alvin. Garcia also announced his openness to running for a full term as Mayor in 2025. Rama officially declared the end of the Barug-KUSUG coalition and his alliance with Garcia the next day, September 24.
2025 mayoral campaign On September 24, 2024, Rama announced Barug's lineup for the
2025 elections, notably including
Liga ng mga Barangay (LnB) Cebu City President Franklyn Ong, who was BOPK's 2022 vice mayoral candidate and a former longtime BOPK member. Barug would form a coalition with BagOng Sugbo (New Cebu), a grassroots movement recently founded by Ong, to launch the Partido Barug BagOng Sugbo Team Rama coalition. They filed their candidacies on October 3, with Rama running for re-election as mayor, Hontiveros running for a full-term as vice mayor, Ong running for congress in the North District, and South District Rep. Edu Rama running for re-election. On the same day, the Ombudsman released its September 19 ruling on Rama's case, dismissing suspended Mayor Rama from his position and permanently disqualifying him from public office. On October 31, 2024, Rama announced that he would challenge Garcia's assumption as mayor, filing a case for usurpation of authority. The Ombudsman would go on to dismiss at least 8 complaints filed by Rama, his allies, and his ex-employees, upholding the Garcia's legitimacy as mayor. On February 19, 2025, Rama announced that he withdrew support for
Tingog Party List after former President Duterte endorsed Barug members on February 13. Tingog's first nominee is incumbent Rep.
Yedda Romualdez, wife of
House Speaker Martin Romualdez. Rama also announced his opposition to the
impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, the former president's daughter. Speaker Romualdez, a cousin of President Bongbong Marcos, led the successful impeachment effort in the House amidst the political rivalry between the formerly-allied
Marcos and
Duterte political dynasties. On April 22, 18 former city employees associated with Rama were ordered to return
handheld radios previously issued by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO). The CDRRMO allegedly intercepted radio communications in early April which revealed that Rama's associates were using the city-issued radios for Rama's election campaign, which would violate laws against using government resources for political purposes. Garcia warned that the people responsible had 72 hours to return the handheld radios, after which he would escalate the matter to the City Legal Office for possible legal action. Rama denied knowledge of the matter, telling
Cebu Daily News that he had no idea about it. On May 12, Rama lost to an
upset victory by Archival, placing third behind Archival and Garcia. Rama's lineup lost decisively, with no candidates winning in the North District, four councilor candidates winning in the South District, and Rep. Edu Rama winning re-election. ==Controversies and legal issues==