DELIVER VOTES FOR MAR-LENI
Close to a thousand Liberal Party (LP) candidates and allies composed mainly of barangay leaders in Cebu City and province were gathered yesterday and asked to sign a paper committing to the number of votes they could deliver for the party’s standard-bearer Mar Roxas and running mate Leni Robredo, with money changing hands for “operational funds,” according to sources.
The event, dubbed as a “vote share assessment” seminar, was attended by party stalwarts that included Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, the former LP president; Quezon City sixth district Rep. Jose Christopher “Kit” Belmonte Jr., a key campaigner for the LP standard-bearer; and Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III, the LP chairman in Cebu.
Also reported present in the gathering held at White Gold House on North Reclamation Area were Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale, who is seeking reelection in tandem with Davide; Provincial Board Member Grecilda Sanchez-Zaballero, the party’s candidate for the third district congressional seat; and PB Member Celestino “Tining” Martinez III.
Before the gathering ended, barangay captains were called to a separate function room, asked how many votes they would commit to deliver for Roxas and Robredo, and were each given P5,000 cash as “operational funds.”
“But the money was not really intended for the barangay officials to share. It’s for their operational funds,” said a Cebu Daily News source who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
But another source told CDN that a female staffer of Abad allegedly told the barangay captains that they would later “collect” on the commitments to deliver a certain number of votes for Roxas and Robredo.
The CDN source, an LP-allied village official who attended the gathering held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., said he received the notice to attend the LP vote assessment activity on Thursday afternoon.
He said hundreds of barangay officials crowded the third floor hall of the White Gold House where discussions were made when he arrived past 10 a.m.
On a day earlier, members of the One Cebu party led by gubernatorial candidate Winston Garcia also gathered on the same venue to formalize their alliance with presidential aspirant Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Yesterday’s LP gathering was the second vote assessment activity that was organized by LP for Cebu. The CDN source could no longer remember when the first one was held.
In yesterday’s event, the barangay officials were told to fill out a form, the size of a short bond paper, to signify the number of registered voters in their respective villages and the number of votes that they would commit to deliver for Roxas and Robredo on May 9.
Abad was quoted by the source as telling the group, “honest assessment ’nyo lang para malaman natin ang votes na makukuha ni Mar at Leni.” (We just want your honest assessment so that we will know the number of votes that Mar and Leni will get.)
Before the gathering ended, the barangay officials were called according to their respective congressional district and were directed to proceed to the restaurant’s second floor function rooms. Abad, Davide and other LP candidates remained at the third floor hall, according to the source.
The CDN source said tables manned by Cebuano-and Tagalog-speaking men and women were placed inside the second floor function rooms. Barangay captains were then asked to step forward and submit the forms they filled up earlier. The barangay captains were then handed small brown envelopes containing P5,000 cash and were made to sign what looked like an attendance sheet.
The barangay captains were told that the money was the “operational fund” for their barangays, said the source.
A mayor from Cebu’s first district confirmed that village officials were called to proceed to the restaurant’s second floor function room after Abad’s talk, but it was for “breakaway sessions.”
“Wala man ko nakakita nga naay gipanghatag (I did not see money exchanging hands),” he said.
Cebu Daily News sought Davide for a comment, but he would not respond to calls or texts.
Lawyer Ramil Abing, the LP Cebu campaign manager, said the event served as a venue to determine from among their local supporters the percentage of possible votes that could be delivered for Roxas and Robredo.
He said Abad was in the event but denied he distributed cash. He also stressed that the LP allies’ commitments did not come with a price.
He said a similar unfounded accusation was also hurled against Abad when the latter attended a seminar on “vote share assessment” held at the Casino Español in Cebu City last February.
Abing said their allies — a mix of local candidates, mayors, provincial board members and barangay captains — pledged to bring up Roxas’s numbers in the surveys before the election day on May 9. Cebu is home to at least 2.7 million voters, with the LP claiming to be allied with most of the incumbent mayors in the province.
“Based on the latest survey, we are confident that Mar can still get high numbers,” he told CDN in a phone interview yesterday.
Roxas is currently in fourth place, trailing behind Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, Senator Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay, latest popularity surveys showed.
A staff member at the restaurant, meanwhile, revealed that people wearing yellow shirts started gathering at the Great Hall on the third floor at around 8 a.m. and left for a “breakout session” before lunchtime.
The reservation was under the name of Davide, the restaurant staff said, for the use of at least five rooms on the second floor for their “breakout session.” People started dispersing at around 1 p.m., the staff member added.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
