You’re probably fed up with messy election season news about candidates stealing copyrighted songs for their campaign jingles, or the larger-than-life amounts spent by senatorial candidates for pre-campaign ads.
Call this one different. Hear the word Pasig and the Eusebios come to mind in a jiffy, they who have been reigning over Pasig City since 1992. You’d think no dare break their long-built tower. But 29-year-old mayoralty newcomer and Pasig City councilor Victor Ma. “Vico” Sotto would.
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Inquirer reported that Sotto first drew attention in August after angry netizens chastised PNP chief Oscar Albayalde for claiming Naga City in Bicol region was “the fifth most crime-ridden city.” Turns out Albayalde was supposed to announce “Region 5 (Bicol region)” where Naga is located.
This was during a press conference that the PNP called to bolster claims made by President Duterte that Naga, Vice President Leni Robredo’s hometown, was the “hotbed of illegal drugs.”
“Talagang hotbed dito!” the 29-year-old Sotto confirmed in a tweet out of the blue, and followed up saying, “Hotbed of citizen empowerment and participation in governance!!!”
Sotto happened to be in Naga just as Albayalde faced reporters. We wish we can score comebacks like that.
Sotto has been vocal about his persistence in driving Pasig to a new direction, a mission that many Pasigueños support. In another Inquirer report, locals also stressed the need not only for a change in name or in face, but also in the system. Backing it up by the locals’ need not only for a change in name or in face, but change in the system. “Kung mapuntahan po ninyo ‘yong mga bara-barangay natin, talagang maraming sumisigaw ng pagbabago.” Sotto expressed during a press briefing in San Juan.
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Sotto is aware that beating incumbent Mayor Robert “Bobby Eusebio” is more difficult than it looks like. “They have the machinery, they have the resources,” he notes, but maintains he has something sturdier than those, which is his message.
“We see how poverty has not improved for 27 years, how the rich have benefited but the poor have not. Right now, the momentum for that message is growing.” Should he win, Sotto would be Metro Manila’s only millennial chief executive.
Header from Inquirer.net