Baybay City mayor to opposition: Stop sowing confusion

BAYBAY CITY, Philippines  â€“ The mayor of this city in Leyte has appealed to the opposition to stop deceiving residents on who the real winner of the recent elections was, saying this was only creating chaos and confusion.

“If they really love Baybay, as they claimed in the last elections, they should not be doing this, especially to their own supporters, (giving them) false hope,” Mayor Carmen Cari said. “Let’s move on; after all, there are another elections in 2016.”

Cari won her second term over challenger Ma. Lourdes Galenzoga by 15,197 votes. Despite the sizable margin, Galenzoga and her camp have not stopped announcing that she was the real winner of the mayoral race. Galenzoga has filed a complaint for “failure of elections” with the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

The Caris, including Rep. Jose Carlos Cari of the fifth district of Leyte, ran under the Liberal Party, while Galenzoga was under the banner of the United Nationalist Alliance. All LP bets in the district won, except for five councilors in two towns.

Mayor Cari warned that if the opposition continues to employ underhand tactics to sow disunity in her city, she would bring them to court.

Last Tuesday, the mayor filed a complaint against businessman Vertillano Relevo for “inciting to sedition” with the prosecutor’s office. Relevo was her opponent’s vice mayoral bet who lost to her son, Michael Cari, by 18,418 votes.

In her complaint, the mayor said despite Relevo’s “personal knowledge as to the true result of the elections,” he displayed a tarpaulin at his gas station claiming that “the newly elected mayor of Baybay City was Marilou Galenzoga.”

Such claim, Mayor Cari said “created chaos and confusion which endangered public safety and disturbed the peace and order of the community.”

She added that it also “tends to stir some people, especially the supporters of Marilou Galenzoga, to go against duly constituted authorities” and “disrespect the result of the elections.”

Also on the Facebook account of Galenzoga’s group is a supposed document on her being allegedly proclaimed by the Comelec as winner in the city’s mayoral race. Mayor Cari said the “photoshopped” document obviously pertains to the proclamation of a party-list winner.

If read closely, she said the document states “to entitle its nominee… to serve for a term of three (3) years ending June 30, 2016, in accordance with Section 7, Article VI of the Constitution.”