90,000 Batangueños show up for Isko Moreno

65,000 Batanguenos show full support for Mayor Isko in Lipa Grand Rally. An estimated 25,000 more showed up in Santo Tomas. (FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — Batangas breathed new energy into the presidential campaign of Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso over the weekend as he drew his biggest crowds yet in the Southern Tagalog province.

The Aksyon Demokratiko standard-bearer spoke before an estimated 65,000 people in Lipa City on Friday, and another 25,000 on Saturday in Santo Tomas town, wrapping up a two-day jaunt in the province from which one of the mayor’s early supporters, Sen. Ralph Recto, pledged 1 million votes for him in the May elections.

Batangas is the seventh province with the most number of voters in the country with more than 1.8 million registered voters out of the 65.7 million voting population.

“This is big. Batangas is big and we have seen in the past that Batangas could make a candidate become president,” the 47-year-old former actor told reporters in San Juan town on Friday.

Since the campaign period began on Feb. 8, small turnouts had been a sore point within the Domagoso camp as it struggled to challenge the mammoth rallies staged by his opponents.

On a recent trip to Laguna, Domagoso said he didn’t mind that his rallies were being dwarfed by his rivals, suggesting that big crowds did not translate to votes.

“With what they’re doing, they achieve the perception that they’re strong and they’re many because they have drone shots. They can achieve that. But for me, I’m about getting the vote. Let them have their pictures,” he said.

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