Bobom Loses Veem’s Race: I Ain't Buy Votes

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

  

URDANETA CITY – The outgoing mayor of this thriving city in Northern Luzon cited his loss for the vice mayoral derby here because he did not resort to vote buying.

“Why will I spend say P30 million to vote buy? That’s profligacy and a folly because I could no longer recoup that based on my three years’ term salary as vice mayor,” Mayor Amadeo “Bobom” Gregorio Perez IV told this writer in Pilipino during a visit by the latter to his office here.
A city vice mayor just like here receives a remuneration of P100,000 monthly.

The nine years’ stint mayor thought his sterling performances as the chief executive here will be his show window to voters to intelligently vote for him but he was wrong.

According to the official count of the Commission on Election, Mayor Perez’s opponent vice mayoralty challenger Jimmy “Jing” Parayno routed him with 16, 302 lead votes out of the 67, 729 voters.
"Wala, pera pera na lang ang mga botante ngayon," he deplored.

ROUT - Urdaneta City outgoing mayor Bobom Perez and his vice
 mayoralty rival who routed him in the last poll Vice 
Mayor -Elect Jing Parayno.

His younger sister was dumped by Vice Mayor Rammy Parayno with 8,635 margin in the mayoral race where the lady bet got 30, 060 while Parayno dusted her with 38, 695 votes. 

Jing Parayno is the nephew of Mayor-Elect Parayno.

 The outgoing mayor only smiled when a radio broadcaster told him that vote buying was practical if one runs for mayorship because the winner can reclaim his expenses through the cut given by suppliers and contractors who transact business with the local government unit.

“The vice mayorship is a thankless job since the occupant cannot do an abracadabra for his advantage because he has no direct access with government funds,” the radio commentator said in the vernacular.

 Perez’s congressman and mayor grandfather and father former mayor and former solon Amadito Perez, Jr. governed this burgeoning vegetable and cattle hubs of Northern and Central Luzon since the 1960s.

The young Perez told this newspaper that he will not seek reelection for the mayorship in the May 2022 election because “I am retired already”.

This“retire quip” was not new with the chief executive because last 2017 he mentioned this when asked if he will seek the congressional race in the May 13, 2019 election versus Fifth District Congressman Amado T. Espino, Jr. after he bowed down from office in June 31 this year.
In October last year, he accompanied his sister where they both filed at the Comelec here for their chosen elective post

“That is not true. After I stepped down from office, I consider myself retired from politics".

Espino was trounced out by Binalonan Mayor Ramon “Monmon” Guico III in that poll.

“I asked Bobom last year that he run for congressman but he begged off and told me to instead challenge Espines,” Guico told recently this writer.

Guico upset Espino by 3,512 votes where the former and latter scored 124, 136, 121, 624 votes respectively.

Sources close to the exiting mayor said that after the one-year ban for public office, Perez, a close party ally of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, will either be whisked to a post in the Department of Agriculture or at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

Perez told this newspaper that when Mayor Duterte asked Malacanang’s advisers if where could Hukbong Pagbabago lead by Duterte and some senatorial bets do their stump in February at the humongous province Pangasinan, Custom Commissioner Isidro Lapena, a village mate of Perez here, told the presidential daughter to instead talk with Perez and not the governor of the province.

“Mayor Sarah called me that the PSG and PMS will be coming in a short period of time and my sister and I were asked to look for someone to sew for our  blue party’s vest,” he smilingly narrated.

He cited that he was the only Pangasinan politician who was with Duterte and party at the guest lounge of the Cultural and Sports Center while Governor Amado Espino III and his father congressman Espino who were not members of Hukbong were at the stage waiting for the guests to speak to the big crowd the mayor and his village chiefs brought to the Center.   

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