The city’s Board of Canvassers finally proclaimed yesterday Mayor Tomas Osmeña and the rest of the candidates of the ruling Bando Osmeña Pundok-Kauswagan the winners in the May 14 elections.
Osmeña only lost in two out of 80 barangays in the city to amass a total of 195,236 votes against Mary Ann delos Santos’ 195,236 votes, or a wide margin of 82,882 votes.
The reelected mayor failed, however, to attend the proclamation yesterday afternoon as he left for Manila to meet lawyer Tony Meer to discuss legal options over the case of the South Road Properties.
But Vice Mayor Michael Rama was there to lead the BOPK winners in the proclamation. The reelected vice mayor got a total of 218,241 votes to clobber his opponent Raymond Alvin Garcia, who only had 82,640 votes for a 135,601 difference.
Garcia, also a lawyer, is the son of former mayor Alvin Garcia.
The canvassing board, headed by election officer Marchel Sarno, also proclaimed Rep. Raul del Mar as winner for the congressional seat of the city’s north district.
Rep. Del Mar garnered 122,988 votes for an insurmountable margin of 115,835 votes against his rival, lawyer Florencio Villarin, who only had 7,153 votes.
South district Rep. Tony Cuenco and all the BOPK candidates for councilors in the south district were already proclaimed winners Friday night.
Following their victories, all eight BOPK bets for councilors in the north district were also proclaimed winners yesterday.
They are Hilario Davide III, with 101,989 votes; Nestor Archival (100,049); Edgardo Labella (96,696); Sylvan Jakosalem (95,031); Christopher Alix (88,404); Edwin Jagmoc (86,506); Lea Ouano-Japson (76,530) and Augustus Pe Jr. (72,377).
Trailing Pe with a difference of 17,800 votes was ninth placer Danilo Fernan, of the opposition, who had 54,577 votes.
Osmeña was elated over the overwhelming support of the city voters, saying they are already “wise” enough that the BOPK even had to ignore the “rampant vote-buying activities” of the opposition in the city’s upland barangays in the north.
The mayor said even with the rivals’ alleged vote buying in barangays Binaliw, Budlaan, Cambinocot, and Lusaran, among others, he still won in these areas, and only lost to Delos Santos in barangays Tinago and Lahug.
Tinago barangay captain Joel Garganera has been a close ally of Delos Santos, who is the barangay captain of Lahug.
It was noted that Osmeña still won even in barangays considered the turf of the opposition such as Punta Princesa, Poblacion-Pardo, Duljo-Fatima, and Tisa, where congressional aspirant Jonathan Guardo resides.
Delos Santos and running mate Garcia, as well as Guardo have earlier conceded the election to their respective rivals even before the canvassing of election returns was completed. — Rene U. Borromeo/RAE