Alvarado defeats Pagdanganan in Bulacan special polls

MALOLOS CITY, Philippines  – It’s now official. Marivic Alvarado was re-elected as congresswoman of the first district of Bulacan, beating former governor Roberto Pagdanganan and four others in the special polls last Saturday.

But Alvarado, wife of Gov. Wilhelmino Alvarado, is clearly a minority representative as only less than half of the total registered voters in the district turned out to vote.

Pagdanganan said he would no longer seek an elective post.

He alleged that the province’s calamity fund was used in the seven-day campaign, but Gov. Alvarado denied the accusation.

Lawyer Sabino Mejarito, provincial election supervisor, said the Provincial Board of Canvassers proclaimed congresswoman-elect Alvarado at around 5 a.m. yesterday.

Based on the results of the special elections, Alvarado earned a total of 95,625 votes compared to Pagdanganan’s 41,658 votes.

The other candidates like former Malolos mayor Danilo Domingo got 1,032 votes; former first district congressman Jun Aniag, 400; Tomas Valencia, 271; and Francisco Cruz, 63.

Of the six candidates, only Alvarado and Pagdanganan eagerly campaigned in the congressional race. Domingo and Aniag, meanwhile, later withdrew their candidacies although their names still appeared on the ballots. Valencia and Cruz did not mount any campaign.

Sabino said the voters’ turnout – 40.73 percent – was lower than they expected. He offered no excuses though.

Records showed only 139,049 out of the total 341,368 registered voters in the first district came out to cast their votes in Saturday’s special polls.

Meanwhile, Pagdanganan told The STAR in a phone interview yesterday that he was no longer keen on seeking an elective post.

“I offered my services to my kababayan and they voted the other way, now I will focus on the private sector where I came from,” he said.

He expressed hopes that Alvarado would address concerns on flooding, health care, and irrigation.

A chemical engineer by profession, Pagdanganan used to be a top executive of Unilever before he was appointed Bulacan governor in 1986.

He ran twice for senator in 1998 and 2001 but lost. He again ran for governor in the 2007 elections, but was defeated by former barangay chairman Joselito Mendoza, who is now the congressman of the third district of Bulacan.

For her part, Alvarado tried to succeed her husband as mayor of Hagonoy in 1998, but lost. She ran and won as vice mayor of the same town in 2004.

In 2007, after her husband completed his three consecutive terms, she ran for Congress and won over former mayor Felix Ople who defeated her in the 1998 Hagonoy mayoral race.