A postscript to an election

Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia was supposed to win re-election comfortably but some people rewrote the script. More than one million people.

Middle of last February, I dropped by the office of Naga City Mayor Val Chiong for small talk. “Guv will still win here but by a smaller margin than in the past elections,” he said. He did not have to tell me the reason for the dampened forecast. Locals were furious because she closed the quarry that supplied limestone to the old Apo Cement resulting in the plant’s temporary closure.

It turned out that even Val’s minimized expectation was wrong. Garcia did not just only lose to her challenger, Pamela Baricuatro. She was beaten badly in his city, by 28,091 votes to be exact. The loss was a bellwether of the results of the entire first congressional district.

The district, which is represented by Rhea Gullas in Congress, is the richest in terms of voting population in the province, and Baricuatro conquered them. When the last ballot was counted, Garcia trailed Baricuatro, 290,224 to 99,869 or a whooping margin of 190,355 votes.

For the first time in her political career, Garcia failed to win in even one of the three cities and three municipalities of the district. Her vote deficits were 54,191 in Talisay, 39,353 in Minglanilla, 21,531 in San Fernando, 42,517 in Carcar, and 4,672 in Sibonga.

So lopsided was the outcome that not even the combined margins in the 20 towns and one city that Garcia won would be able to offset her losses in the island’s premiere district.

The numbers were measly, with all due respect. Only Dumanjug and Bogo delivered relatively better margins, 15,705 and 10,627. Garcia is known to be treated like a rockstar in Camotes and Bantayan but she won by only 834 votes in Pilar, 2,901 in Poro, 2,589 in Tudela, 1,822 in San Francisco, 1,344 in Madridejos, 1,687 in Bantayan, and 501 in Santa Fe.

That most, if not almost all, of her candidates in the municipal or city levels won appears to be intriguing. Did the mayors junk her? That is always a possibility in any election.

But she lost in Liloan, home of her son-in-law, the 5th district congressman, and won only by the barest of margins in Barili, where the mayor is a nephew.

“Lisod lang gyud ibaligya sa mga tawo,” a southwestern town mayor rued. The reasons that many cited are many: the people want a new face in the Capitol, she is quarrelsome and arrogant, she made many controversial decisions, and she abandoned Duterte.

It can be a combination of all of the above but her abandonment of the former president appears to be the strongest factor. Cebu is Duterte country. That is hard to swallow but it is. You want proof? Look at the list of winning senatorial candidates in Cebu. Phillip Salvador is there. And Apollo Quiboloy almost made it!

I am sorry to disappoint my friends who see in the victories of Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan a glimmer of hope for a return to normalcy in our electoral system when officials are elected on their own merit, not on who is endorsing them. It may happen elsewhere but not sooner in our neck of the woods. Bam and Kiko did not win because of Cebu. They won in spite of Cebu.