FOR three consecutive elections, Team Deretso led by Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza earned a landslide victory.
In Mandaue City, Rep. Luigi Quisumbing (Cebu, sixth district) and lawyer Carlo Fortuna won as mayor and vice mayor, respectively.
At 7 a.m. yesterday, Lapu-Lapu City Election Officer Marchel Sarno declared Paz’s victory, with total votes of 83,330. Paz’s runningmate and reelectionist Vice Mayor Marcial Ycong also won.
Rep. Aileen Radaza, Paz’s daugther, got a fresh mandate after garnering 86,069 votes.
Based on the certificate of canvass of votes and proclamation of winning candidates for councilors, the winning candidates for councilors are Harry Don Radaza (78,804 votes), Eduardo Patalinjug (72,845), Ricardo Amores (65,950), Nelson Yap (61,821), Roque Wagwag (60,231), Elias Berdin (58,030), Melissa Vidal (56,406), Flaviano Hiyas Jr. (53,897), Damian Gomez Jr. (53,643), Leo Mercado (51,096), Cipriano Flores (47,613) and Gregorio Paquibot (46,235).
In Mandaue, Quisumbing defeated Councilor Emmarie “Lolypop” Ouano-Dizon.
Quisumbing garnered 85,433 votes, while Dizon got 65,055.
Mandaue Election Officer Ferdinand Gujilde proclaimed the winners at 2 a.m. yesterday.
“On behalf of our team, Team Mandaue, we are extremely grateful to the people of Mandaue for the overwhelming mandate they gave Jonas (Cortes) as congressman, myself as mayor and Carlo as vice mayor. You know, the thing about elections is that you are never quite sure of the results until they quite come out. The response has been overwhelming. We are exteremely humbled and honored by the trust and confidence given to us by the people of Mandaue and we are exteremely excited to get to work,” said Quisumbing.
Once he takes over as the new mayor, Quisumbing said he would like to sit down with the “transition team” with incumbent Mandaue Mayor Jonas Cortes to figure out the priorities of the new administration.
Quisumbing assured that there will be no interruption in the progress that Cortes’ administration has made.
For his part, Cortes said his only request to Quisumbing and Fortuna is to continue the implementation of the Performance Governance System because he believed that this is the reason why the City has improved.
“The people has spoken loud and clear. Now that they have chosen the new leaders of Mandaue, I hope that we can have unity with the opposing party. Let us work and move forward for Mandaue,” said Cortes.
Fortuna said he will support the agenda of the city mayor, especially in terms of program implementation.
The councilors who won in Mandaue were Demetrio Cortes, Elmer Cabahug, Nenita Layese, Tony Dabon, Malcolm Sanchez, Carmelino del Mar Jr., Ben Basiga, Kevin Cabahug, Cynthia Remedio and Olin Seno.
Despite the glitches encountered by some of the vote counting machines (VCMs), Mandaue Comelec was the first city to transmit results to the Provincial Board of Canvassers.
In an interview, Gujilde said the voter turnout was at 83 percent.
Mandaue replaced 10 VCMs with contingency machines after these encountered problems.
Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal, director of Mandaue City Police Office, said there was no crime that happened in city during the elections.