Resign as interim PCL chairmanship

FORMER Philippine Councilor’s League (PCL) President Luis “Chavit” Singson has urged Davao

City Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang “to resign as interim (PCL) chair.”

“Because (Dayanghirang) is a (PCL national chairman) candidate and not supposed to spend millions of PCL funds for his own campaign” Singson said in his Facebook post.

In fact, he said, all interim officers who are candidates should also resign until the PCL elects the new set of officers.

“We all know you spend P1 million every National Board Meeting. Please resign to unite and bring back the intergrity of PCL,” said Singson, a whistleblower in the “Jose Velarde” gambling payola case that led to the downfall of then impeached President Joseph Estrada.

Dayanghirang, also in his Facebook post, said he has “yielded temporarily the presiding chair.”

Both Singson and Dayanghirang have condemned the software technical glitches during the elections of PCL national officers last Feb. 27. The glitches resulted to the declaration of election failure.

But prior to that, Dayanghirang accused the camp of his rival candidate of vote-buying.

Singson, a former oneterm councilor of Narvacan town in Ilocos Sur before he became a mayor after the 2019 elections, said “the technical glitch... tainted the integrity of PCL National Elections.”

“It is frustrating that huge amount of government funds was put to waste when failure of elections was declared while we can resort to manual elections,” he said in his Feb. 28 Facebook statement.

Singson said “it is urgent to investigate the issue on hand to regain the trust of 12,000 councilors who attended (the elections).”

Dayanghirang, in a Facebook statement, said he has yielded temporarily the presiding chair to Bruce Matabalao of Cotabato City.

The Davao councilor is engaged in a bitter rivalry with Polangui, Albay councilor Jesciel Salceda for the PCL leadership.

Dayanghirang stressed his dismay with what transpired during the election, saying “blatant and massive vote buying befell.”

“Each of us undeniably witnessed how rampant it was. Since day 1 of the campaign, PCL was trapped inevitably from vote buying. And we do not leave these things hanging, a clamor of investigating all of these as I inhibit myself in the process to avoid biases and most importantly uphold delicadeza,” Dayanghirang said.

The Davao lawmaker, however, bared that all the regular PCL programs will still continue, including medical and burial assistance.

“Instead, I urge all councilors to unite and exceed these challenges and maintain our pledge, ‘service above self,’” Dayanghirang said.