THE merger meeting between the two major local political groups in Negros Occidental has not reached an agreement for the coming 2019 elections after an initial talk of their respective leaders last week.
A SunStar Bacolod source from Love Negros confirmed that the meeting between Governor Alfredo Marañon who leads the United Negros Alliance (Unega) and Third District Representative Alfredo Benitez, who leads Love Negros, pushed through on August 17 in Metro Manila.
The source said that Unega is pushing for a possible tandem of “double A” for the two highest positions in the province for 2019, which is referring to Benitez for governor and Sagay City Alfredo Marañon III for vice governor. The merger will go down to the city and municipal positions if it materializes.
However, the source said that Benitez up to this time has not decided yet whether to run for governor of the province in 2019 or take the offer to be the campaign manager of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) in preparation for 2022 which is an ideal year for him to run for senator.
Benitez was included in the senatorial line-up of PDP-Laban in the 2019 elections.
The SunStar Bacolod source also revealed that if Benitez decides to run for governor, he will most likely to pick incumbent Vice Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson to be his running mate as Lacson who still has one term left.
Lacson has repeatedly said that he is waiting for the decision of Benitez for the 2019 elections, adding they will not clash with each other in the election. "If this happens the merger talk would be a failure," the source said.
Another scenario, according to the source, is if Benitez would not run for governor, Lacson will definitely run for governor and it is possible that his running mate would either be Mayor Marañon or Fourth District Representative Juliet Marie Ferrer as former congressman Jeffrey Ferrer may go back to the fourth district and replace his wife in Congress.
"There will be a possible merger with this scenario," the source said.