Gwen Garcia
CEBU third district Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia now has to decide whether to stay with Vice President Jejomar Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) or leave to fully support Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential bid.
Garcia said she needs to “set things straight” in the coming days while she weighs her options.
“I am the founder of One Cebu and my family has come up with a unified decision (to support Duterte), but I also continue to be one of the founding members of UNA,” she told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview yesterday.
She said she will make an announcement once she arrives at a decision.
The Garcia-led One Cebu party recently announced its support for Duterte’s bid, about two weeks after the local group broke off ties with Binay’s UNA. One Cebu and UNA formed its alliance in February this year.
One Cebu severed its connection with UNA after the latter allegedly failed to coordinate with the former in conducting sorties all over the province as well as cavorting with the local party’s opponents.
Despite the breakup, Garcia remains to be a member of UNA. She said that she will only bolt the party if it becomes disloyal to her.
In her certificate of candidacy filed in October last year, Garcia specified that she was running under UNA and One Cebu.
Although rumors were already rife that One Cebu was supporting Duterte after dropping Binay, Garcia, sought for comment then, said that they will only “cross the bridge when (they) get there.”
“Well, now the bridge is here,” she said.
Garcia and her friends were recently photographed raising their right fists forward, a gesture popularly used by Duterte in his campaign.
The photo, uploaded on the congresswoman’s public Facebook page “Governor Gwendolyn F. Garcia,” had the caption “One Cebu is for Duterte. #1cebu #du30 #Cebu” and already had 189 reactions and three comments as of 5 p.m. yesterday.
Asked to comment on the photo, the congresswoman laughed and said it was “nothing.”
Before One Cebu announced its support to Duterte, party chairman and gubernatorial bet Winston Garcia, Gwen’s brother, said they were either going to support a national candidate or declare a free zone over Cebu province.
Even then, One Cebu-allied mayors have been clamoring for the local party to pick Duterte, saying they believed the mayor could put an end to criminality and drug problems in the country should he be elected as president.
Sought for comment on his sister’s predicament, Winston told CDN that she is “for Duterte.”
“We can’t have two presidential candidates,” Garcia said, but he did not elaborate.