Pateros, NCR's only remaining municipality, to have a new mayor

Metro Manila’s lone municipality, Pateros, will have a new leadership come June 30.

With incumbent Mayor Jaime Medina slated to step down after serving his third consecutive term,  six candidates are running for the mayoralty.

They are Willie Buenaventura (Nacionalista Party), Delfin de la Rosa (independent), Jorge Nicdao (Nationalist People’s Coalition), Ramon Roxas, beauty queen-turned-actress Daisy Reyes (independent), and lawyer Miguel “Ike” Ponce III (Liberal Party).

This is not the first time Buenaventura sought the town’s highest elective post. In 2004, he challenged then mayor Rosendo Capco but lost.

Buenaventura also once served as chief of staff of vice presidential candidate Senator Alan Peter Cayetano.

After nearly defeating Medina in the 2013 election, Ponce is vying for the same post again in the hope of clinching it this time.

Ponce’s family is into politics. He is a son of former vice mayor Mike Ponce while his uncle (Nestor Ponce) and grandfather (Antonino Ponce) also led the town decades ago.

Reyes, on the other hand, is a second-term councilor.

Four people are gunning for the vice mayoral post, including incumbent Gerald German who is seeking for a second term as an independent candidate.

His opponents are Bebot Cuerdo (NP), Bojie Mangoba (NPC) and Benny Santidad (independent).

It’s a face off between Gloria Cabrera and incumbent Arnel Cerafica for the congressional race.

Pateros, a town known for its balut industry, has the smallest voting population in Metro Manila.

There are 33,938 voters in Pateros, more than half (55 percent) of them belong to the age bracket of 18 to 39, according to Commission on Elections data. --NB, GMA News