COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Cotabato City Vice Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi assumed the post of mayor on Friday, a day after the late Mayor Japal Guiani was buried.
Guiani-Sayadi is the late mayor's sister. Their nephew, Councilor Graham Guiani Dumama, also assumed the post of vice mayor. Both officials took their oaths at the People's Palace before Judge Bansawan Ibrahim of Regional Trial Court Branch 13.
Under the Local Government Code, the city councilor who received the most votes in the preceding elections, moves up to vice mayor in case of a vacancy.
Guiani, who was supposedly in his third and last term as mayor, and his sister, a lawyer by profession, were running mates during the May 9, 2016 local elections.
City government employees estimated that at least 2,000 people attended the Islamic burial rite for Guiani for Thursday, who died in a hospital in Davao City earlier that day.
Guiani, popular for having enticed investors to put up capital-intensive businesses in the city, among them huge shopping malls in the past six years, had gone on a long leave from work before he passed away. He was buried on Thursday afternoon in a Muslim cemetery in Barangay Gang in nearby Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao, some three kilometers northwest of Cotabato City.
Guiani started his political career as member of the city council, which he led as city vice-mayor for three consecutive terms.