Urdanetans reelects Parayno team
URDANETA City’s voters gave Mayor Julio Parayno III and his team a nearly clean sweep of the May 12 election, giving only one council seat to their opponents.
Although running as an independent candidate, Parayno roundly beat Maan Guico, wife of incumbent Gov. Ramon Guico III, of the Nacionalista Party, in an election reportedly marred by alleged massive vote-buying and threats and intimidation on the mayor and his cousin, Vice Mayor Jimmy Parayno.
The reelected Mayor Parayno – who got 46,243 votes against his opponent’s 25,242 – will be serving his third and final term.
Vice Mayor Jimmy, meanwhile, received 41,913 votes, beating incumbent 5th District Board Member Chinky Perez-Tababa, who only got 28,850 votes.
In the race for the 10-man city council, Alfonso del Prado made it to the top, accounting for 40,913 votes, followed by incumbent Councilor Warren Andrada with 37,913 votes.
Another incumbent, Bless Sumera was third with 36,368 votes, followed by another incumbent, Aurelio Agsalud, in fourth place with 34,983 votes. Councilor and presently Urdaneta City Acting Mayor Rio Esteves trails with 34,390 votes, while Tet Naguiat, the lone candidate of the Maan Guico team, is just few votes behind with 33,434 votes.
Four other incumbent councilors ranked seventh to 10th place: Hero Sumera who garnered 33,165 votes; Franklin Villanueva, 31,872 votes; Onofre Gorospe, 28,949 votes; and Jen Gandia, 28,949 votes.
In a victory speech, Parayno thanked his townmates for uniting behind him and choosing their own “son”, promising to return the favor by serving and working more for Urdaneta’s progress and development.
The Parayno cousins won by a landslide despite still being under a one-year suspension on order of the Office of the President.
Michael Brian Perez, who filed the administrative cases against the Paraynos before the Office of the President, lost his bid for councilor. The criminal aspect of the case, also filed by Perez, was dismissed by the Ombudsman. (Leonardo Micua)
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