THE visit here of presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte clarified the political alignments in Cebu for the May 2019 elections. Sara is also the prime mover of the regional grouping Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HnP), the other administration party aside from the Partido Demokratiko-Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (PDP-Laban). She is running for reelection and is not gunning for a Senate post as earlier believed.
Sara was here for the formalization of HnP’s alliance with the Hugpong Mandauehanon sa Pagbabago of Mayor Luigi Quisumbing. In the process, she cleared the air on certain issues. My roots are from Poro and Tudela towns in the Camotes group of islands, so I am particularly interested with how the Duranos that control the politics in the fifth district where Camotes belongs are faring.
The biggest piece of information picked up from her visit is that there is no alliance existing between HnP and the Duranos’ Bangon Alang sa Kauswagan ug Demokrasya (Bakud). The failure of the Duranos to forge an alliance with Sara’s camp impacts considerably on the politics in the province. Or more particularly the gubernatorial race and the elections at the provincial level.
Former governor Gwendolyn Garcia has filed her certificate of candidacy for governor and will be pitted against Vice Governor Agnes Magpale, who was thrust into the frontline after Gov. Hilario Davide III chose to run for vice governor. Garcia is allied with PDP-Laban. I thought all along Magpale is with the HnP because I thought Bakud had forged an alliance with the party. That didn’t happen.
It looks to me like the Garcia camp outmaneuvered the Magpale-Davide camp on the matter of forging an alliance with administration leaders, which for some politicians is a must in a midterm election. But that is not their sole fault, however, because Magpale and Davide are but victims of political circumstance.
I initially thought that the rift between the Duranos of Danao City and the Dutertes of Davao City only surfaced in the 2016 elections when the former supported another candidate for president. We all know that the late Durano matriarch Beatriz was a Duterte and President Duterte’s father Vicente was once a Danao City mayor. I only knew from Sara’s recent visit that Vicente left Danao for Davao to save his skin. The conflict between the Duranos of Danao and the Dutertes of Davao City is apparently deeply rooted.
When I wrote the book on the history of Tudela town years ago, I came across materials about how the Durano patriarch took power in Danao, which was then part of the first congressional district of old, and consolidated his rule there starting in 1949. When Danao later became part of the new fifth district, Mano Amon also consolidated his rule in that district. The consolidation effort was a violent one sometimes.
Anyway, while there is no HnP-Barug alliance, Sara is still supporting Magpale by declaring the province a free zone. Meanwhile, Bakud will most probably seek the help of the weakened Nationalist People’s Coalition, its old ally. As for Davide, he will also have to rely on another visibly weakened group, the Liberal Party.