Sept 8-14, 2011
“What about Vice Governor Victorio “Baby” Suaybaguio Jr running for governor also?”
This has been asked by several quarters after the Valley & City Chronicle bannered last week that Tagum City Mayor Rey “Chiong Oy” Uy is running for governor by 2013 polls if “there’s vacancy”, that is, if second-termer Governor Rodolfo del Rosario will not seek reelection.
Edgardo Pojas, a church worker in Sto. Tomas, for one, asked: “Si Baby diay mag-unsa siya? Dapat modagan pod siya kay vice gov na gud siya” after seeing the last week’s headline, “CEE O TO RUN FOR GOV IF…”
But while not a few in Davao del Norte Capitol are seeing that Gov. Del Rosario is still running for governor by 2013 polls but on the prospect that if President Benigno Aquino III picks the governor for a Cabinet function and should the latter accede, Vice Gov. Suaybaguio Jr is given a higher notch that would have him running for governor.
This is contemplated by pundits as a Cabinet reorganization is reported by the national media to be in the offing.
It would be recalled that when the President visited Sto. Tomas town to launch a Kalahi welfare program last September 2010 he was quoted that he would be later be tapping Gov. Del Rosario for an important function in his administration.
Provincial social welfare officer Arlene Semblante however personally opined that she is rather seeing that the governor, who has still a last term, is bound to seek reelection in the way he actively pushes his programs for the welfare of the people in the province.
Other Capitol employees including Vice Gov. Suaybaguio, in separate interviews, are seeing the same.
The vice governor said he as the “man next after him (governor) is of course ready” to run the Capitol affairs and implement the governor’s administration thrusts in case he serves in higher position.
But, he added, as of now he is seeing the governor to be completing all his gains and accomplishments in his third term.
Vice Gov. Suaybaguio has been noted to be a good ally of the governor visibly starting 2001 when they both won for the province’s top posts.
In that year Suaybaguio won his first vice gubernatorial term while Del Rosario wangled his first gubernatorial term under the divided, smaller Davao del Norte after serving three terms as District 3 congressman under the old undivided province.
In 2007 when Gov. Del Rosario came back to run for governor after serving as secretary of New Government Centers. He handily won in tandem again with Suaybaguio as his vice governor for their new first term. At present the two are serving their second terms after winning handily in the last May 2010 polls under the Liberal Party of President PNoy.
As Del Rosario had been winning electoral bouts either unopposed or over no-match rivals except perhaps ex-Gov. Gelacio Gementiza who sought reelection for governor in 2007 polls, Suaybaguio on the other hand defeated his vice gubernatorial rivals each leaving them a deafening margin of over a hundred thousand votes.
In 2001 polls Suaybaguio defeated ex-Boardmember Virgilio Boiser with a margin of over 124,000 votes. He defeated rivals Boardmember Shirley Belen Aala in 2007 and ex-Boardmember Roger Israel in 2010 leaving them wide margins of over 101,000 votes and over 150,000 votes, respectively.
Truly a son of Tagum he won his first elective post as municipal councilor in 1980 and after a term he ran and won as the vice mayor before he completed his three straight terms as the municipal mayor from 1988 to 1998. Suaybaguio was the architect of the cityhood of Tagum as it was on his last term that he successfully labored to make Tagum a city worthy to be called as such for the 9 years of massive developments that the city had undergone under his leadership as shown in the market –terminal-slaughterhouse-road complex that he built and which bustles now in the inner northern frontier of the citywhich was once an wide agricultural, forested area.
For three terms he was the president of the mayors’ league of still undivided Davao del Norte.
In 1995 polls when Suaybaguio sought for his last term his complete slate- from mayoral and vice mayoral down to councilors’candidates- was so unopposed with zero rival not even a nuisance independent candidate in sight, a record that is still unbroken until this date. (Rural Urban News/Cha Monforte)
Filed under: vice gov baby suaybaguio, Vice Governor Victorio "Baby" Suaybaguio Jr
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