BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The possibility that Negros Occidental officials will have a common choice for one presidential candidate in the May next year elections is unlikely to happen.
This was the initial assessment of Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson, in response to a question if there will be a collective decision from Love Negros-United Negros Alliance coalition to support a common presidential candidate, or allow everybody to decide on their own.
The most ideal really is, according to Lacson, to have a collective decision. But he said that there are already mayors who have committed to a certain candidate.
At least a dozen of city and municipal mayors in Negros Occidental, who are calling Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte to run for president in the May 2022 elections.
During the 2016 presidential elections, the late Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. led Negros Occidental provincial officials and mayors in supporting the presidential bid of then Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, who was defeated by Rodrigo Roa Duterte.
Roxas prevailed over Duterte in Negros Occidental.
I don’t know if it is still possible for Negros Occidental to come up with just one choice, which Lacson said “that would be the most ideal situation for the province to show that a candidate can depend on a unanimous vote from the province”.
But as it is right now, it is highly possible that there will be different choices, mostly likely, he stressed.
Lacson said they have to wait the final list of presidential candidates.
The tandem of Senator Panfilo Lacson and Senate President Vicente Sotto III officially launched yesterday their bid for the 2022 national elections.
Sotto, a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, is the vice-presidential candidate of Lacson, a member of the Partido para sa Demokratikong Reporma.
Lacson is a member of NPC.*
