Provincial politics

Gov. Hilario Davide III has denied that Capitol’s plan to hire an advertising agency to inform its constituents of its achievements has anything to do with the 2019 elections. But the plan was hatched amid rumors former governor Gwendolyn Garcia would be running for governor in 2019. Garcia is currently in the House of Representatives representing Cebu province’s third district.

Former congressman Pablo John Garcia is reportedly already making the rounds in the third district, a move that suggests he is out to reclaim the post that was his before he ran against Davide for governor in 2013 and lost. That time, Garcia ran in the third district in his stead and won.

Gwen was governor from 2004 to 2013 when she was already barred from running for reelection. She won previous elections using the slogan, “Buhat maoy pasultihon,” which showcased her achievements as governor. Davide must have anticipated Gwen using the same slogan if she runs against him. With that, the hiring of an advertising agency acquires a more sinister meaning.

A Gwen Garcia vs. Davide tussle next year will almost certainly focus on what he (Davide) has done during his two terms as governor. This is because Gwen will surely harp on her achievements and thus compare these to what Davide has done or hasn’t done in his six years in office. Without the province constituents knowing these, he would be vulnerable to claims Garcia is more of a performer than him.

Davide, though, will still have the advantage of running for a third term as an incumbent. He has already defeated not only Pablo John in the 2013 polls but also lawyer and former Provincial Board member Winston Garcia in 2016. Will he be able to fend off Gwen’s challenge this time around?

Gwen running for governor will surely result in the resurrection of issues that were hurled against her in the past, like the controversial purchase of the Balili property in Tinaan, City of Naga for which she received a dismissal from public office order from the Office of the Ombudsman, one that House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez refused to implement.

I am not a lawyer and as a layman I think there is a legal issue there that needs to be resolved. Can the Commission on Elections (Comelec) even bar her from running for governor next year after her dismissal order was issued? I am not competent to discuss the matter but it could mean the difference between Davide having a more formidable opponent for governor or not.

The other major issue would be the construction of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC), a structure that Davide has refused to repair after it was damaged by an earthquake and which was eventually sold to the Mandaue City Government. The structure was once used to showcase its supposedly anomalous construction. A tarpaulin with the message “Never Again... People’s Money Wasted” was hung there before the 2016 elections.

All of these promises an interesting gubernatorial race next year. On this, we again would use the famous Tagalog line,