Joining the fray is senior board member and labor leader Enrico Antoni of the Lakas-NUCD.
Another interesting showdown is the gubernatorial tussle between re-electionist Gov. Remedios Petilla and former governor and US ambassador Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez.
"I am not threatened or scared," said Failon, who will run as an independent. "I am offering myself as an alternative candidate."
Rep. Romualdez, however, is unfazed by Failon’s challenge. "I am ready for a head-on collision," said the solon, who is married to former actress Cristina Gonzalez.
"The people know what is good for the district," he said, adding he would not resort to personal attacks during the campaign.
Romualdez is the Eastern Visayas chairman of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC). His father, Alfredo "Bejo" Romualdez, Kokoy’s younger brother, is the incumbent mayor of this city.
Accompanied by seven town mayors and his supporters, Romualdez filed his certificate of candidacy before noon yesterday. Failon, of Barangay 82 here, had yet to formalize his candidacy as of yesterday.
Romualdez is gunning for a second term. In 1998, he won handily over the late Rep. Cirilo "Roy" Montejo.
Failon, son of a jeepney driver, Joe Etong, of Barangay Sta. Cruz, Jaro, Leyte, and a market vendor, Josefina Failon, of Ilocos Sur, recalled that he used to work in a company here which the Romualdezes owned, before he made it big in Metro Manila.
Failon worked as reporter and, at the same time, driver-errand boy at radio station dyPL, one of the first in the region. When the Romualdezes bought the station and renamed it dyMM, Failon was promoted to production chief and later, station manager. The station was later placed under sequestration.
"I acknowledge that. I remember driving people to the Nipa Hut," he said, referring to Kokoy’s mansion here. "But I never dealt with them personally."