ALLIES of Mayor Democrito “Aljun” Diamante of Tuburan town, southwest Cebu dominated the 2018 barangay elections last Monday.
Of the 54 villages in the municipality, 44 barangay captains who won in Monday’s polls were known supporters of Diamante who sits as mayor only because of a temporary restraining order (TRO) that prevented his rival, Daphne Lagon, from assuming the town’s top government seat.
“I got 44 of them. She (Lagon) only has 10 barangay captains,” Diamante told Cebu Daily News on Tuesday.
But in Lagon’s list, she said she has 13 newly-elected barangay captains or three more than Diamante’s count.
“It’s actually 13,” she said in a separate interview.
“But it’s all right. In fact, in the last elections, only one of my barangay captains won,” she added.
Diamante and Lagon faced off in the 2016 elections. Diamante was subsequently proclaimed as the winner in the mayoralty race with a margin of 46 votes over Lagon.
Lagon filed an election protest in court, prompting the conduct of a manual recount in contested precincts.
In October 2017, Judge Hermes Montero of the Regional Trial Court Branch 29 in Toledo City declared Lagon as the real winner of the mayoral race in Tuburan.
In the manual recount of votes from about 11 contested precincts in the second-class municipality located 83 kilometers northeast of Cebu City, Lagon garnered 93 votes over Diamante.
Diamante immediately asked the Commission on Elections to issue a TRO and not to allow Lagon to assume as mayor while he was contesting the court ruling.
His plea was granted.
Diamante said he expected many of his allies to win in Monday’s barangay elections.
“Ang uban nadala lang sa hulga og sa kuwarta (There were just those who gave in to threats and money),” he said.
Lagon, for her part, said the results of the barangay elections in Tuburan did not come as a surprise.
“Gipanghadlok man. Wala mibarog ang akong leader kay hudlaton man (My allies were threatened. My leader did not stand by me because of threats),” she said.
Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said he was happy that no violent incidents happened in Tuburan town where six villages were declared “election hotspots” due to intense political rivalry and previous election-related violence.
“Our security preparations were effective and the candidates cooperated. They themselves wanted a peaceful conduct of the elections,” he said.
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