LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte—With just nine days left before elections, the presidential bid of administration standard bearer Mar Roxas got a big boost Saturday, as 22 out of the 23 incumbent mayors of Ilocos Norte committed their full support to the former Interior and Local Government Secretary.
The commitment of support was made during a meeting between Roxas and the local chief executives that was organized by Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas.
The Ilocano lawmaker said that although the municipal and city mayors come from different political parties – with only three coming from the administration Liberal Party (LP)– they all agreed to throw their full support behind Roxas so that the reforms initiated during the Aquino administration would be assuredly continued.
“Ako, kaibigan ko silang lahat na tumatakbo sa pagka-pangulo. But the momentum is already there for reforms. Andyan na yung buwelo, bakit pa natin patitigilin. Kaya kami, napag-usapan namin na si Mar ang pinakamabuti sa bansa natin,” Fariñas said.
In the meantime, Roxas said that he was very happy and grateful for the trust and support given to him by Ilocos Norte.
“The endorsement given to me by 22 of the 23 mayors of this province is proof of the growing ranks of supporters for Daang Matuwid,” he said.
The endorsement also came as a double achievement for the LP standard bearer as it came in the heels of an ABS-CBN survey made by Pulse Asia survey which showed Roxas overtaking erstwhile front-runner Vice President Jejomar Binay and is now statistically tied for second place with Senator Grace Poe.
Roxas got a bump to 20 percent from his previous 18 percent, outscoring Binay’s 18 percent.
Binay dropped 1 percent from the previous survey.
Duterte remains on top with 33 percent down from 34 percent in the last ABS-CBN survey and 35 percent from the last Pulso ng Bayan survey, both done by Pulse Asia.
Poe remains unchanged at 22 percent.
Roxas said that while he firmly believed that surveys are only indicative and does not represent the real picture, he pointed out that the latest survey result showed that he was the only one whose numbers went up.
“I am very encouraged with the results from the latest survey. It showed that there is now a palpable shift on the ground. We hope that the endorsement from Ilocos Norte would be the beginning of the snowballing of support for Mar,” he said.
“I am very confident that the real will of the people will come out on May 9. Tiwala ako na tayo ang mananalo,” Roxas said.