Cojuangco recruiting allies for his guv run

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – The staff of former congressman Mark Cojuangco has recruited a former vice mayor of a Central Pangasinan town to be his mayoralty bet in the next year's election.

The former vice mayor, a lawyer who asked for anonymity, said that a staff of Cojuangco asked for his availability for the mayoralty race under the Nationalist People’s Coalition but he courteously declined the offer.

Another source told this paper that a vice mayor in an Eastern Pangasinan’s town had been recruited to run for the mayoralty under the aegis of the former solon.

A feeler of a vice mayor in the 2nd Congressional District of the Province sought the intercession of an incumbent mayor, a friend of Cojuangco, for the vice mayor’s plan to run too for the town’s top post in 2019.

AID - Former Congressman Mark Cojuangco helps carry a plastic bag full of relief goods he gave for the flood victims at a village in Calasiao, Pangasinan when a typhoon and monsoon rain battered the vulnerable town.

When Cojuangco ran for the governorship in the May 2016 election he was trounced out by the present governor Amado I. Espino III with the latter getting 736,909 votes while the former settled for 513,897 votes.

The source said Cojuangco learned a hard lesson on that expensive poll where he allegedly spent hundreds of millions of pesos one year before the poll on medical missions helping the poor around the huge province.

He said that a defeated mayoralty candidate told him that the former congressman should get rid of those doctors he hired from Pampanga and Tarlac provinces.

“He should instead spend the bulk of those hundreds of millions of pesos a month or weeks before the day of the casting of votes,” he quoted the mayoralty bet.

He cited that when the son of the mayoralty candidate ran in tandem with Cojuangco, the former congressman ran out of monies a few weeks before the poll.

“The father left those Saturday and Sunday to campaign in the town by shoring up his son’s electoral stocks by giving “goodies” to voters in the eight towns to ingratiate with them”.

Cojuangco was on his own without his father helping him, the source referred to mogul Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, Sr., the father of the former solon.
Danding is the chairman of Asia’s business behemoth San Miguel Corporation.

The source cited that a few weeks before the May 2016 election, the Espinos' financial juggernaut rolled unchallenged in most of the 44 towns and three cities of Pangasinan. 
It not only dragged the favor of many voters but those many pro Cojuangco mayors who deserted him in favor of Espino and his vice gubenatorial bet reelectionist Jose Ferdinand Calimlim.

The only district that the political potency of the Espino lost its luster was in the First Congressional District of Representative Jesus “Boying” Celeste.

Through the unrivaled chutzpah of Celeste, he saw to it that his rabidly loyal ten mayors remained with Cojuangco as they rallied the support of the voters there to defeat the Espino-Calimlim tandem.

 “Cojuangco won here because of our unqualified support and effective leadership,” he told this paper after the May 2016 poll.

The Celestes reigned until now not only in the congressional district but the local governments of Alaminos City and Bolinao.

The source said that one of them could be the probable vice governorship ticket of Cojuangco in the next year’s race.

Abono Party List Chairman Rosendo So told this paper a month ago that Cojuangco wanted to have a comeback on the gubernatorial contest.
October 1 to 5 are the official dates all over the Philippines for the filling of candidacy of all bets from senators to the town’s council members for next year’s middle term election.