NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – A reelected town mayor here died of multiple organ failure in the early hours of Friday, May 27.
Mayor Mario Magno was pronounced dead at 3:15 am on Friday, weeks after he was proclaimed the winner in the San Enrique town mayoral race.
The family's spokesperson, Maria Ester Espina, said that Magno suffered from complications of a kidney transplant. Magno, 64, had been in and out of the hospital since early this year.
Espina said the mayor had cardiac arrest at around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday but was revived.
Vice Mayor Abner Jardinico took his oath as mayor Friday afternoon, and will serve the position until Magno's term ends on June 30.
By virtue of succession, Vice Mayor-elect Jilson Tubillara will assume the mayoral post on June 30.
Tubillara lost to Magno by just 20 votes in the 2013 mayoral race. He filed an election protest but it was dismissed due to forum-shopping.
'Disappointed'
The Magno family expressed disappointed over Jardinico's immediate occupation of the mayor’s office.
“We would like to express our disappointment and disgust on the recent actuation of Vice Mayor Jardinico who upon his taking oath of office as mayor, immediately installed himself in our brother’s office," Magno’s elder brother Carlitos said in a press statement.
He added that Jardinico even held a press conference in the office and ordered "the mayor’s staff to immediately vacate and remove all of Mayor Magno’s personal belongings."
"Decency dictates that at the very least, we allow the family to grieve and give due respect to the sudden demise of Mayor Magno," he said.
Carlitos said that the family expected more from Jardinico, considering that his son and Magno's daughter are married, "that he would understand what our family is going through, particularly his daughter-in-law who is on her way back to bid her final respects to her father."
"We respect the law and the automatic rule of succession but we were also hoping that those who now occupy his office will accord the same respect to my brother who just died hours ago," he added.
Electoral protest
Jardinico, who was also a mayoral candidate, has a pending electoral protest against Magno, filed on May 17.
Bago City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Frances Guanzon had ordered a manual recount of the votes cast in the San Enrique mayoral race.
Magno won his third and final term with 7,906 votes against Jardinico's 4,885.
San Enrique Election Officer Maria Vicel Diancin said they turned over the ballot boxes from 27 clustered precincts and the voters’ list to the court Friday morning. This was in compliance with the court directive to Diancin and the municipal treasurer to turn over the ballot boxes, election paraphernalia, and election documents on that day.
Since the vote counting machines (VCMs) and the secure digital (SD) memory card had been forwarded to Manila, Diancin said she wrote a letter to the judge that her office could not produce the said election paraphernalia. She said that the court has yet to set the date of the manual recount.
San Enrique has a total of 16,417 registered voters in 10 barangays with 27 clustered precincts and 9 voting centers. – Rappler.com