Late lawmaker's daughter leads in poll

TUGUEGARAO CITY ,Philippines  – The daughter of the late congressman Florencio Vargas, who died before the 15th Congress opened last year, was leading in the early trend of the special congressional poll in the province’s second district here late afternoon.

Baby Celine Vargas-Alfonso was leading the trend in the town of Piat which is said to be a turf of rival Edgar Ramones Lara who is former governor of this province.

In the realm of the Vargases, Alfonso-Vargas humiliated her rival with a far margin of 700-50 in the early counting in Abulug town.

Alfonso-Vargas who is current vice mayor of the Vargas hometown of Abulug belongs to Team Cagayan party identified with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. Lara is the official candidate of the administration’s Liberal Party.

Team Cagayan swept the entire Liberal Party provincial line up in the last local elections.

In the site of the famous Basilica Minore of the regional patron, Our Lady of Piat, Barangay Sto. Domingo chairman Richard Biraquit said it took him time to make rounds with a public address system all over his place to call on residents to get out and vote.

However, the townsfolk responded they rather spend time doing their chores in their respective rice fields as the harvest season nears, Biraquit said. Piat is at the distant location from the coastal north where a low turn out was also noted due to tsunami scare last Friday noon.

Peaceful conduct of special polls

A generally peaceful conduct was described in the concluded special elections for the vacated seat of this province’ second district.

“It is like there is no election taking place,” described Director Purita Licas of the regional office of the Philippine Information Agency of the Sto. Niño town central school where authorities initially noted a low turn out of voters. Sto. Niño is also an inner municipality far from the coastline.

Elections in the island municipality of Calayan that has 8,000 voters also pushed through despite fears of delay due to the impending tsunami in the high seas of Babuyan Strait last Friday. Helicopter gunships of the Armed For­ces were able to deliver election paraphernalia in the said town before noon Friday.

Moreover, the Commission on Elections has described as “smoothly” the conduct of special polls in some parts of the country yesterday.

In an interview, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the polling precincts opened as scheduled at 7 a.m. and there was no report of untoward incidents as of press time.

“It’s been going on smoothly. There’s no problem with the election forms and other supplies and there is no report about polling precincts that didn’t function because of lack of election paraphernalia,” he said.

Special polls were held in areas like Sitio Apalis, Barangay Bunot in Paracelis town, Mountain Province; Lower Cabengbeng, in Sumisip town, Basilan; Barangay Bunot,in Indanan town, Sulu; Sitio Paraitan and Sitio Gumanting in Sapa-Sapa town, Tawi-Tawi.

The May 10, 2010 election in these areas was declared a failure due to poll-related violence.

Jimenez said even in Cagayan where tsunami alert warning was raised, most voters went out to vote.              – With Sheila Crisostomo