[] Vote sharing in Cebu governor election is seen by a survey as lopsided: Gwen Garcia's 95.8 percent vs. rival Pam Baricuatro's 3.2 percent. No need then for brutality and fury in campaign rhetoric, or is there?
LAST Friday, April 25, 2025, or 17 days before the May 12 midterm election, reelectionist Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia made the grim assessment during a rally in Compostela.
She had gone through seven election campaigns: four for governor, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2019, 2022; two for third-district congresswoman, 2013 and 2016. This, in the year 2025, is her eighth, capping her second three-term round at the Cebu Capitol.
The battle experience must qualify Guv Gwen as a super expert on election campaigns. She knows when she sees one in her sphere of experience.
COMBATIVE GWEN. She didn't sound she was complaining though when she said on the public stage that this last campaign (at least for this second round) is mean, vicious and character-murderous.
She can't complain, not totally, because she hasn't been known for being meek in responding to attacks from any sector, election time or off. Lawyer-opinion columnist Josephus B. Gimenez called her in 2019 "the dragon lady from Dumanjug and Barili." A former Manileno Cabinet member, who demanded that he be not identified, once told a friend who told me during the pandemic crisis, "We're more than careful about Cebu's dragon lady."
Guv Gwen has countered with the defensive/offensive point that she's firm against wrongdoing and gets things done while the one who wants to replace her is not. The "vilest, (most) venomous, scandalous attacks" against her have also solidified voters' support to her reelection, she told a rally audience. Go on, continue. Gwen said. The competition obviously has obliged.
Related: Seares: Garcia vs. Baricuatro: Which one fears the other in Cebu governor race? April 12, 2025. Tit for tat in Pam vs. Gwen social media posts, March 28, 2025.
COULD BE THE PERSONAL STUFF. While Baricuatro's camp occasionally dishes out serious stuff -- such as Capitol's alleged inability to fortify health care among the poor amid the repeatedly validated affluence of the provincial government -- it draws more attention to personal things, such as the governor's dance moves, looks or feelings. Among Baricuatro's comments: The trend now is "feeling," she said, "feeling pretty or feeling young." A woman journalist texted me, "Between us girls, that's bitingly mean."
Guv Gwen faced a woman before in the governorship fight: then vice governor and later acting governor Agnes Magpale. This vileness in rhetoric wasn't in that campaign. Not even when Magpale had posed a bigger pre-election threat than Baricuatro does now (prompting Atty. Gimenez then to predict, in his column, a close fight). In that 2019 tussle with Agnes though, Gwen won in all the districts, with a 293,565 province-wide lead, even beating Agnes in her northern bailiwick.
Must be in the personal content of the attacks, a Cebuano journalist based in Manila told me, explaining the heat and noise in the gubernatorial fight. What Pam's camp unleashes stings, he said, not that Gwen's own support artillery lobs soft bombs. One post teased about Pam's "healthy" figure, her charity work, her claimed residence in a Cebu town and the modest quarters where her mom lived in Cebu City.
PAM IS BUDDY OF CRITIC ROWENA. One can't help noticing that Pam is not just another woman opposing Gwen Garcia in an election. She's a friend of the late Dr. Rowena Burden, a vocal critic of the governor or, more accurately, the only critic who could say on record all those ugly accusations against Gwen.
Pam -- once or twice in a snippet of comment between making dance moves or belting out lines of a song -- said she was a close friend of Burden, they worked together for charity, and she (Burden) was among the reasons Pam is a candidate for governor. Pam would continue Rowena's fight against Gwen.
Pam is not just running to serve the public. Not totally "walang personalan." Her friend Burden, 58, died of cardiac arrest on December 15, 2023 with 20 libel complaints filed by the governor against the doctor, who had posted bail for three out of eight warrants of arrest against her 15 days before she died.
BARICUATRO WILL LOSE, OR FORECASTS SAY. A survey result I received at weekend camp gives Gwen 95.8 percent against Baricuatro's 3.2 percent, in a poll said to be conducted independently by "Boses ng Bayan" during the period from March 25 to 31, 2025.
Critics question in general terms the survey result but Pam's camp has not produced anything, fact or fiction, to dispute the figures that call Gwen's reelection.
Even without any survey backing, most watchers on local politics rate Gwen as the "most probable, very(2) likely" winner because of her entrenched and efficient political machinery, affirmed in her straight-win record, which was capped by the 1.5 million majority over Ace Durano in the immediately preceding election. Baricuatro's vote machine couldn't be larger, wider and more productive than that of the Duranos, which failed hugely in 2022.
WHAT IT IS, ACCORDING TO GARCIA CAMP. The survey result is being touted by the governor's team as Gwen's time for "popping champagne," shooting fireworks, "riding a golden chariot pulled by unicorns," and giving a victory speech.
How about Pam's reaction, comparatively? As Gwen celebrates, the spin continues, Pam is still "on the starting line," "campaigning in the mute, stuck on a tricycle," and "Googling how to win an election." "Aray" or, as foreigner friend would say, "ouch."
PAM AIMS FOR UPSET; GWEN NOT TAKING CHANCES. Apparently, Pam's strategists are targeting an upset, a hope that seemed, looked or sounded plausible when public "outrage" or "emotional outburst" over former President Rodrigo Duterte's arrest and turnover to the International Criminal Court reached its peak. Duterte loyalists insist that the peak is still to come. However the Duterte factor will materialize on May 12, Garcia obviously has been giving Baricuatro no quarters in staging attacks or setting up defenses.
Which must explain why the reelectionist governor has diligently addressed each plausible issue she discussed on the campaign trail, chopping it into chewable bits that fit YouTube/Facebook time slots. The features have ranged from:
* Slogans and other sound bites ("Paminawa ang tingog sa katawhan, ang matood nga realidad dinhi sa Sugbo..."), to...
* Creative if unusual public displays of affection ("Oooooo, Toledooooo, I love yooooo." "Ang kasingkasing ni Gwen Garcia, mata'g pitik...usa lamang, inyong madungog, usa lamang: Sugbo, Sugboanon"), to...
* Some tutorial on spotting politicians' false promises and devious tactics, which implies her promises are true and her intention is honorable.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS TO BLAME, the governor said this week during her campaign stump. Many supporters and critics who write or comment in the internet hide identity with fake name or account, she said, and there are no regulators. No, there's no editor or publisher to delete criminal or offensive material.
Yet if the social media user doesn't apply the brakes and he "crosses the line," whichever line the aggrieved party sets, the alleged offender can be sued, as Pam Baricuarto was sued, not just by Gwen herself, Pam wailed, but also by the governor's brother, Byron Garcia, who runs a mean vlog (with "mean" meaning efficient, effective and, yes, mean).
It may take the police or NBI to trace the source of an offensive post. The fake news bill is still to be passed by Congress and signed by the president. But the basic libel law is in the statute books and it can be used to afflict the alleged libeler.
Meantime, the opportunity to exercise vileness or plain cruelty is available to both protagonists. Some vloggers even presented comparisons in the same reel, such as their dancing and singing skills, including outfit of the day. The media consumer knows whose side the post favors and yet delights in the pairing.