It must be the “BF” stamp of approval that enabled a mayoral candidate in Marikina City to limit the incumbent to just two terms.
Rep. Marcelino Teodoro, who is supported by former Mayor and now Rep. Bayani Fernando, defeated reelectionist Del de Guzman by a margin of about 5,000 votes. Fernando’s long years at City Hall are credited with the city’s multiple awards for good governance since the 1990s.
Teodoro, a last-term congressman, got 90,486 votes while 85,537 votes went to De Guzman, one of the local candidates endorsed by the influential Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC).
But De Guzman’s ally, reelectionist Vice Mayor Jose Fabian Cadiz who also got INC’s support, won with 99,122 votes to beat rival Marion Andres who got 69,487.
In the congressional race, the INC also backed reelectionist Rep. Miro Quimbo and Fernando. Quimbo was unopposed, while Fernando, who ran in the city’s first district, won decisively with 42,810 votes against closest rival Sam Ferriol, who got 29,367.
In an interview on Wednesday, De Guzman admitted that Fernando’s endorsement of his rival was “a factor one way or another” in his defeat.
But he pointed out that the alleged “vote-buying” committed by the Teodoro camp days before and on the eve of the elections also raised his rival’s chances.
Last week, the Inquirer obtained a video of residents receiving P1,800 in cash each at a residential compound in Barangay San Roque. The clip showed social workers seated in monobloc chairs with Teodoro campaign stickers and handing out money under a cash-for-work program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
De Guzman then called the DSWD’s attention as reports emerged on social media that the cash recipients were not actually given any work to do.
Teodoro, when sought for comment that week, maintained that the activity was a “continuing national government program of the DSWD.”
During his proclamation as mayor on Tuesday, Teodoro dismissed the allegation as black propaganda, saying “the people have already spoken.”
“They threw (dirt) at me, I didn’t throw it back because it will just lower the standard of politics. They were expecting that the people will believe it and won’t vote for me. But we won even without the support of Iglesia ni Cristo,” he told the Inquirer.
Meanwhile, Fernando attributed De Guzman’s loss to his being a “nonperformer” and blamed his one-time protégé for the ‘’lack of discipline and order” he now sees in Marikina.
But De Guzman, who served as Fernando’s vice mayor from 1992 to 2001, disputed this assessment—but admitted he may have been “too compassionate; people sometimes told me that the problem is I’m too kind.”
He also explained that the city was just rebuilding from the devastation of typhoon Ondoy in 2009 when he took over as mayor the following year.