Nestor, Pamela, Jonkie, Cindi Dominate polls: Stunning upsets

CEBU, Philippines — In a stunning political shift, Cebu City Councilor Nestor Archival secured the mayoral post, while newcomer gubernatorial candidate Pam Baricuatro held a lead of over 300,000 votes as of 11:30 PM yesterday, threatening to unseat Cebu Provincial Governor Gwen Garcia.

In highly-contested Mandaue City, Provincial Board Member Jonkie Ouano clinched the mayoral post with a lead of around 6,000 over former Mayor Jonas Cortes.

In Lapu-Lapu City, Congresswoman Cindi Chan has a huge lead over former mayor Paz Radaza in the mayoralty race. Chan garnered more than 130,000 votes while Radaza got over 40,000 votes as of 11 p.m.

Dubbed as underdogs and "dark horses" at the start of the campaign season, both Archival and Baricuatro surged in the race, riding waves of grassroots support, and a call for change.

Councilor Archival bagged the Cebu City mayoralty seat with 250,129 votes, defeating Mayor Raymond Garcia (170,514), as well as former mayor Michael Rama (116,865), former Customs chief Yogi Ruiz (27,238), and independent candidate Julito Co (3,109).

As of press time, proclamation of the winners was still unscheduled, but Mayor Garcia has posted in his Facebook page, conceding defeat to Archival and congratulating the new mayor.

He also assured “to spend the next weeks ensuring a smooth transition to the incoming administration, even as we make good on the projects we’ve already lined up.”

Early on, Ruiz also conceded and congratulated Archival, assuring him of his support.

Archival, for his part, posted a message linked to a video showing Carbon market vendors celebrating, saying "this fight was for you and for all Cebuanos."

Province

Meanwhile, Baricuatro, a political neophyte who earned the strong backing from supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte had over a million votes while Garcia garnered close to 700,000 votes.

The back-to-back upsets mark a pivotal shift in Cebu’s political landscape, long dominated by well-established political families.

In the vice gubernatorial race, Gwen’s runningmate Glenn Soco won by over a huge stretch with close to a million votes, over independent candidate Joselito Ruiz who had around 300,000.

In the congressional level for the Province of Cebu, the winning candidates are: unopposed Rhea Gullas (1st district); Edsel Galeos (2nd district); unopposed Karen Garcia (3rd district); Sun Shimura (4th district); Duke Frasco (5th district); Daphne Lagon (6th district); Patricia Calderon (7th district); and Lolypop Ouano-Dizon (Mandaue District); Ahong Chan (Lapu-Lapu). — (FREEMAN)