Cavite, Laguna govs guarantee victory for BBM

MANILA, Philippines — The governors of Cavite and Laguna have vowed to give presidential frontrunner Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. a landslide victory in their respective vote-rich provinces in the May 9 elections.

Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla and Laguna Gov. Ramil Hernandez made the commitment as they met Marcos in the BBM campaign headquarters in Mandaluyong City on Thursday night.

“Based on our projections he (Marcos) will get 1.2 million votes in Cavite, as per our latest survey dated April 24,” Remulla revealed, adding that rival Vice President Leni Robredo will only get up to 400,000 votes based on the same survey.

“I’m 99 percent sure (that is going to be the turnout),” Remulla said.

For his part, Hernandez revealed that Marcos will get at least 60 percent of the Laguna voting population.

“In my calculations, BBM will get more or less 60 percent of the votes from Laguna. I have regular survey where he’s getting 57 to 61 percent,” he bared.

Based on Commission on Elections (Comelec) records, Cavite is the second most vote-rich province in the country with over 2.3 million registered voters for this year’s elections, while Laguna is fourth with over two million voters.

Cebu retained the most vote-rich status among provinces with around 3.2 million registered voters. Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia has committed a landslide victory for Marcos in her province.

Aside from Remulla and Hernandez, also present during the meeting were Governors Melchor Diclas of Benguet; Dale Corvera, Agusan del Norte; Albert Raymond Garcia, Bataan; Roberto Uy, Zamboanga del Norte; Zaldy Villa, Siquijor; Rhodora Cadiao, Antique; Damian Mercado, Southern Leyte; Roel Degamo, Negros Oriental; and Dax Cua, Quirino. 

The other governors also assured Marcos of overwhelming victory as they vowed to protect his votes in their respective provinces.

Meanwhile, Uy belied reports that he is supporting the candidacy of Robredo after several photos surfaced that he was with the Vice President.?

“Don’t believe those pictures of us with priests that they keep on posting in the plaza because it’s election season. We’re 100 percent for BBM,” he insisted.?

For his part, Mercado declared that their province is “Marcos country” even as his opponent in politics is also supporting Marcos. The camp of Marcos earlier claimed that 73 out of the country’s 81 governors have already committed support to his presidential bid.

Alarm over breach

Meanwhile, Marcos is alarmed over the reported security breach in the system of automated election system provider Smartmatic.

He said his UniTeam with running mate and vice presidential frontrunner Sara Duterte-Carpio is closely monitoring the matter and how the Comelec is handling it.

“I’m worried about when we talked about the security breach – that the statements of Comelec are changing. At first, they said there was no breach, then they say somebody brought a computer, then it turns out there was really a security breach but that information was not important, and then the information apparently came out in the dark web. So there are things I worry about,” Marcos said at a press conference in Cagayan de Oro City earlier this week.

“Everything concerns me, not only Mindanao, not only certain areas but everywhere. Because that kind of wholesale cheating is not really done on the job, it’s done in some secret place,” he stressed.