MIDTERM POLLS: LAPU-LAPU CITY
Pajo Barangay Captain Junard “Ahong” Chan is making a run for the Lapu-Lapu City’s mayor’s seat in the 2019 election, hoping to bring his brand of leadership to City Hall and loosen the Radazas’ 18-year grip of the city government’s top post.
Chan, a two-term village chief in Barangay Pajo, said in a phone interview on Saturday that he had done a lot of consultations with the Oponganons before deciding to run for the city mayor’s post.
“We consulted the people in every barangay if I am worthy to stand before them. We have seen their desire for a change of city government leadership,” he said in Cebuano.
Chan will run under the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP–Laban) after Secretary Adelino Sitoy, Presidential Adviser on Legislative Affairs, earlier declared Chan as the PDP-Laban’s standard bearer in the city.
Chan said his running mate or his candidate for vice mayor would be Celedonio “Celsi” Sitoy and his candidate for the congressional seat would be former councilor and lawyer Eugene Espedido.
He said Celedonio Sitoy, a former Cordova mayor and the brother of Adelino, is a practicing physician and had been residing in Barangay Gun-ob in Lapu-Lapu City.
He said Sitoy and Espedido were chosen by President Rodrigo Duterte to run under PDP-Laban.
“The qualification for these candidates is they had not been involved in corruption and illegal drugs. That’s the qualification. Since the two of them are qualified, then that is the decision of the party of the President,” Chan said in Cebuano.
Chan, however, said that he would announce on Monday his final slate and the schedule of the filing of their certificates of candidacy.
Mayor Radaza’s plan
Meanwhile, incumbent Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza, who is on her last term as mayor, is seeking a seat in Congress.
Radaza, who is from the PDP-Laban, earlier announced forging ties with Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD).
She, however, had not announced yet who would be her party’s candidate for mayor.
She also did not confirm reports that her husband, former Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, would run for the position.
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