ILOILO CITY?Some supporters of Sen. Manuel ?Mar? Roxas II here blamed the defeat of the Liberal Party (LP) vice presidential candidate on supporters of President-elect Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III who allegedly junked Roxas in favor of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay.
?It hurt us that Aquino supporters were sleeping with the enemy,? an LP leader on Panay Island told the Inquirer on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak on the issue.
The ?Noy-Bi (Aquino-Binay)? factions, which included several core groups in the Aquino camp, tipped the balance in favor of Binay, who was running under the rival Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino party.
Caught off guard
The LP insider said Roxas? supporters in Panay were caught off guard by Binay?s surge, saying they were focused on keeping Sen. Loren Legarda of the Nacionalista Party at bay.
?We were confident of victory against Loren so we shifted the focus of the campaign and concentrated on Aquino in the last few weeks before the May 10 elections,? he said.
?We saw (Sen. Manuel Villar) inching up on Aquino and decided to re-channel our efforts to Noynoy. We did not anticipate Binay surging ahead,? the LP insider admitted.
He said the Roxas machinery practically shouldered the campaign and funding of the LP campaign on Panay Island, including the campaign for Aquino.
Junked
?We dedicated our machinery and resources for Aquino and ended up being junked by some of Aquino?s supporters. That was disappointing,? the party insider said.
But he acknowledged that Binay?s last-minute but aggressive campaigning among mayors on Panay Island dented Roxas? hometown lead.
Binay?s people approached mayors, even those aligned with the LP, offering money and trying to win them over to an Aquino-Binay tandem, the LP leader claimed.
The junking of Roxas by Aquino supporters and the last-minute campaign of Binay supporters are seen as the reason Roxas did not lead by as large a margin as expected even in his supposed bailiwicks.
In Capiz, Roxas won over Binay with a margin of 116,526 votes?204,839 votes for Roxas against 88,313 votes for Binay.
Slim lead at home
In Roxas City, the hometown of Roxas, the LP vice presidential candidate won over Binay by 16,012 votes from the total 69,140 votes cast. Roxas garnered 39,609 votes (59.5 percent) against Binay?s 23,597 votes (35.4 percent).
Aquino got more votes in Roxas City than the Capiz-born senator.
In contrast, Binay got a bigger vote lead in his home turf, Makati City. Binay got 179,375 votes (64.3 percent) against Roxas? 74,897 votes (26.85 percent).
The incumbent mayor of Roxas City, former LP stalwart Vicente Bermejo, broke away from the Roxas camp last year. He lost by a close margin of 691 votes to Roxas? party mate, Vice Mayor Alan Celino.
Failure to connect
Roxas won in Roxas City and 15 towns. He lost to Binay in only one town, Dao, the hometown of controversial former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn ?Jocjoc? Bolante. Roxas got 6,559 votes while Binay had 7,308 votes in Dao. (Bolante lost by a margin of more than 68,000 votes in the gubernatorial race to Roxas ally, incumbent Gov. Victor Tanco.)
But some other LP supporters intimated that they were disappointed at Roxas for failing to connect with more voters on Panay Island.
On the island-resort of Boracay where Aquino and Roxas also won, some LP supporters said Binay was more aggressive in touching base with voters.
The Boracay Foundation Inc., a group of business owners on the island, invited Roxas last year to their induction of officers but Roxas did not come. Binay, on the other hand, visited Malay town (where Boracay is located), declared it a sister town of Makati City and even donated two multi-cab vehicles.
