Lakas predicts 98-seat win in House

With only a month left before the May 14 elections, the ruling party Lakas is projecting that it will capture at least 98 of the more than 200 seats in the House of Representatives that are at stake in the balloting.

"We expect to win in at least 98 congressional districts where our candidates are running unopposed or their opponents are weak and there is virtually no opposition," Lakas executive director Raymundo Roquero said yesterday.

He said of these districts, 21 are in Luzon, 26 in the Visayas and 40 are in Mindanao.

"We are projecting to win at least 11 seats in Metro Manila, including a sweep of the four districts in vote-rich Quezon City under Mayor Sonny (Feliciano) Belmonte, who is running virtually unopposed," he said.

Belmonte is Lakas executive vice president.

Roquero said the 21 congressional seats in Luzon that the ruling party expects to capture include six in Pangasinan, where Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. is regarded as a "hands-down winner" in the fourth district.

"Lakas will also win big in neighboring Tarlac, La Union and the rest of Northern Luzon, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan," he said.

He said the party’s 40 candidates in Mindanao with great chances of winning are mostly unopposed.

"We will win four congressional seats in Region 9, 10 seats in Region 10, eight in Region 11, three in Region 12, seven in the Caraga Region, and all of the eight seats in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao," he added.

He pointed out that in the Visayas, Lakas will score huge victories in Cebu, Iloilo and Bohol, three provinces that gave President Arroyo a lead of more than a million votes over her closest opponent, the late popular actor Fernando Poe Jr., in the May 2004 presidential election.

"These provinces have remained as our bailiwicks," he stressed.

Mrs. Arroyo’s lead of more than one million votes in Cebu, Bohol and Iloilo in 2004 wiped out Poe’s margin of about 500,000 in most of Luzon, where the President lost except in fewer than 10 towns and congressional districts.

One of these towns is Las Piñas, where Mrs. Arroyo won by just more than a thousand votes over Poe. Las Piñas is the stronghold of the Villars, who supported the President. Ironically, Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. is now seeking reelection under the Genuine Opposition.

Roquero said the 98 House seats that Lakas expects to capture do not include those that other groups belonging to the administration coalition are projecting to win.