Group vows to campaign vs. Marcos supporters
Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (center in white shirt) cracks a joke with at least 60 barangay officials of Cebu City led by Tinago Barangay Captain Joel Garganera (with microphone) at the Cebu Country Club. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
LOCAL officials who will support the vice presidential bid of Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. got fair warning yesterday from the Anti-Bongbong Coalition (ABC).
Noel Tabasa, ABC spokesman, said that local officials who will support Marcos will also be the subject of their negative campaigning, especially those who are running in the May 9 elections and later, during the barangay elections.
Tabasa issued the warning as Marcos intensified his campaign in Cebu City yesterday where he called for a meeting with most of Cebu City’s barangay captains at the Cebu Country Club.
“We will also be campaigning against them,” Tabasa said.
Tinago Barangay Captain Joel Garganera, who served as emcee during yesterday’s meeting, said there were more than 60 Cebu City barangay captains — both from Team Rama and Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) — who attended the meeting.
The barangay captains, who were present in the event, included Jose Navarro of Punta Princesa, Eduardo Lauron of Carreta, Lutherlee Ignacio-Soon of Inayawan, Norman Navarro of Basak San Nicolas, Reynaldo Ompoc of Mabolo, Gremar Barete of Buhisan, Omar Durano of Cogon Ramos, Carlo Yap of Pahina Central, and Jerome Puerto of Day-as.
“I invited them and they were kind enough to come and join us,” Marcos said of the meeting with the barangay captains.
Marcos said he was not also worried at all on the negative campaigning launched by anti-Marcos groups including the ABC.
He said he is aware of such movements because every time he faced the media, the issues against his family and martial law are expected to be brought up.
“Of course, I’m aware of those groups because in every press conference I have, the media brings it up. I can not avoid it. But the welcome that I got here today was so warm and so enthusiastic and I’m very encouraged about how the election will go here in Cebu for me,” he said.
Besides, old and new allies are supporting him and he hopes this will translate to votes for him.
“So far, parang walang nagbago. I have not really felt the effect. I don’t know but as far as I can tell, pareho na rin naman at mainit ang pagsalubong ng tao at tinatanggap ang ating mensahe,” said Marcos, who also visited Barangays Pasil, Suba, and Sawang Calero yesterday.
Tabasa, however, assured Marcos that he will not win in the election.
He said he and ABC will continue to campaign against him through social media and pulong-pulong in the different barangays.
“Mangamote na siya dinhi sa Sugbo. (He will not win in Cebu) Cebu is not for Bongbong. The Cebuanos are freedom-loving people,” he said.
Lawyer Democrito Barcenas, who was one of the victims during the marial law years, said Bongbong is just dreaming if he thinks that he will win in Cebu.
“That’s wishful thinking. Bongbong will lose in Cebu,” he said.
Barcenas said the issue against the Marcos family will greatly affect his candidacy, especially that Cebu is really anti-Marcos, and it was proven during the 1986 snap elections when his father lost heavily in Cebu.
Barcenas also said that while Bongbong Marcos may just be the son of the dictator, but the young Marcos can be considered a participant or accessory to the crime committed by his father.
Barcenas said Bongbong knew of the billions of dollars stolen by his father “but he kept that stolen money with his mother Imelda.”
Garganera, however, clarified that he may have been the emcee of the event but his vice president is still Senator Gringo Honasan, who is the running mate of Vice
President Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance.
He said he introduced Marcos to the barangay captains as the next vice president because he said that is what a candidate wanted to hear at a gathering like that.
He also said that the barangay captains, who attended the meeting, wanted to hear from Marcos, the chair the local government committee in the Senate, an update of the move to postpone the barangay elections.
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