The Philippine Online Chronicles

Technical glitches delayed the canvassing of votes in the local elections in Marikina as Liberal Party (LP) candidates won a landslide victory against bets of the ruling Kabayani party.

At around midnight today, incumbent Marikina congressman Del De Guzman and running-mate Fabian Cadiz won convincingly against the tandem of mayoralty candidate and three-term vice-mayor Marion Andres and vice-mayoralty bet Thaddeus Santos.

In the count, De Guzman got around 95,000 votes against the 33,000 votes for Andres while Cadiz got around 79,000 votes against Santos' 43,000.

According to the local Commission on Elections, the canvassing of votes was delayed by more than a day due to malfunctioning Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines in three major barangays in Marikina—Fortune, Malanday, and Santo Nino. To remedy the problem, the municipal board of canvassers used a single PCOS machine unit as a back-up in counting the pending ballots

Yesterday in the National Capital Region, the cities of Caloocan, Quezon City, Manila, Makati, Paranaque, Mandaluyong, and Las Pinas proclaimed their local election winners.

With the proclamation greeted by fireworks, the win of the De Guzman-Cadiz tandem marked a change of color in Marikina politics which has been ruled by the clan of Bagumbayan vice-presidential candidate Bayani Fernando for more than a decade.

The Kabayani party of Andres and Santos is affiliated with Fernando's national party Bagumbayan, whose presidential candidate is Senator Richard Gordon. De Guzman's win came months after tropical storm Ondoy, which caused massive flooding in major parts of Marikina.

Like his party-mates, Romero Quimbo of LP won via landslide against Donn Carlo Favis (42,000 votes to 12,000) of Kabayani in the second district's congressional race.

However, incumbent congressman Marcelino Teodoro of Kabayani won a second term at the first district elections, getting 45,000 votes to beat Samuel Ferriol of the LP, who got 20,000 votes.