Cebu election results have no logical pattern

I’m sure our readers are anxious about the election results in Cebu. In Cebu City, here’s the partial and unofficial tally. It was a landslide win for the Bando-Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan/Liberal Party (BO-PK/LP) with Vice-Mayor Michael Rama winning over his rivals former Mayor Alvin Garcia and Mayor Osmeña’s sister Georgia. For Vice-Mayor it’s Joy Augustus Young and a straight win for all the 8 councilors for the North and South District of Cebu City. Mayor Tomas Osmeña won in the Congressional race for the South District with 125,575 votes, while Ms. Cutie del Mar had a convincing win of 98,501 votes for Congresswoman of the North District.

In the Province of Cebu, here’s the official tally for all the votes cast. The One Cebu Party led by Gov. Gwen F. Garcia won with 639,587 votes over contender Jun Davide III with 543,246 votes. For Vice-Governor, Greg Sanchez had 543,924 votes over One Cebu’s candidate Glenn Soco who had 517,687 votes. This was indeed a very tight race for Vice-Governor.

For the 1st District of Cebu Province, Rep. Eddie Gullas won with 209,208 votes. In the second District, Rep. Pablo Garcia won with 117,670 votes. In the 3rd District, Rep. Pablo John won with 127,730 votes, while in the 4th District; Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon won with 137,324 votes. For the 5th District, Rep. Ramon “Red” Durano VI won with 163,874 votes, while for the 6th District, Luigi Quisumbing won with 113,996 votes and for Lapu-Lapu City’s lone district, Mayor Arturo Radaza won with 70,125 votes. All told, One Cebu Party won all the contested congressional seats in the Province of Cebu, including most of its mayors in all the towns.

Now let’s go to the Presidential race with 88.46 percent of the votes cast. Sen. Noynoy Aquino got 541,920 votes followed by Gibo Teodoro with 246,292 votes and Manny Villar got 150,384 votes. Erap got 45,524 votes. In the Vice-Presidential race, Mar Roxas won in Cebu with 589,310 votes followed by Binay at 226,278 votes, while Loren Legarda only got 91,378 votes.

While we congratulated the Comelec for the quick results of this election, allow me to be the first to question its credibility because it doesn’t follow a logical pattern! A case in point are the votes for Binay versus Legarda who was supported by the One Cebu Party. Mind you, Erap’s Pwersa ng Masa Pilipino (PMP) had no local gubernatorial slate in Cebu; hence he campaigned solely on his own without any help from any local candidates. Yet Erap who is undoubtedly more immensely popular than Binay only got 45,524 votes, while Binay got a whopping 226,278 votes? How could this be?

With the huge win of the One Cebu Party and no local support for Binay, it is statistically impossible for him to get bigger votes than Erap, This is something for the Comelec to explain as the people are still scratching their heads why this election is not following any pattern? Maybe we should look into all the votes cast to double check this result for our satisfaction.

We wrote about that incident in Bogo City last Wednesday, so here are the details of this incident. While the PNP already declared that elections in Cebu last May 10 was peaceful and orderly, the Bogo incident is proof that their assessment was not entirely correct or even truthful. We have long known that Bogo City would be a major hotspot and in fact, Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon made a request to place Bogo under Comelec control, but that request fell upon deaf ears.

Because of the failure of the Comelec to ensure a peaceful and honest elections in Bogo, an incident erupted last May 10 that many of us saw on TV… where vehicles belonging to Bogo Mayor Celestino “Junnie” Martinez blocked the road along Pulangbato to prevent Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon from joining his supporters who allegedly were not allowed by the Bogo Mayor to enter the polling place.

In a presscon last Wednesday, Rep. Ben-Hur, said his vehicle was blocked by vehicles belonging to the Martinez camp… preventing him from going anywhere. Then Mrs. Clavel Martinez demanded that his vehicles be searched for weapons even without a search warrant. Mayor Martinez also blocked an Army Simba armored vehicle and a military truck. Worse of all, Sen. Supt. Edgardo Ingking and Police Insp. Etuma of the PNP were interviewed saying that there was nothing wrong with the incident.

It is unacceptable that two high-ranking police officers, including a military Simba could not stop a Mayor from blocking the road. In my book there was a total breakdown of law and order because the Comelec failed to put Bogo under its control. That incident could have been a repeat of the Maguindanao massacre as all the elements in that massacre were present in Bogo, including the presence of the media. If you ask me, there was a failure of elections in Bogo as the voters had no freedom to go to the polling place.

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