BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said yesterday it will be “most ideal” to support one presidential candidate in Negros Occidental in the 2022 elections but admitted it would be difficult to get such consensus from all public officials.
Lacson was reacting to a question of whether Love-Negros and the United Negros Alliance will support one presidential candidate, as raised earlier by La Castellana Mayor Rhumyla Nicor-Mangilimutan, who had joined the call for Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio to run for president in next year’s polls.
Silay City Mayor Mark Golez and Hinigaran Mayor Nadie Arceo also expressed their support for Duterte-Carpio.
“It’s really up to the mayors if they want to commit already,” Lacson, who is an official of the local political group Love Negros, said.
He also said that he and Vice Gov. Jeffrey Ferrer, who is the president of the United Negros Alliance, will wait until after the filing of the Certificates of Candidacy in October to determine whom to support.
“If Negros can come up with one common candidate, that is a big plus on our part,” he said. “But we cannot force the choices of other public officials,” Lacson added.
Lacson, who is also a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, said he will most likely support the stand of NPC. “But then, again, I will wait for the filing of the COCs.”
Love Negros and UNegA entered into an alliance in the provincial level during the 2019 elections.
The Alliance of Broadcasting Committee-Padayona Inday Sara movement in Negros Occidental is among the groups spearheading the call for Duterte-Carpio to run for president.*