This refers to the news item “Court on Vergara case: Suffrage can’t be sacrificed” (Across the Nation, 2/21/16).
Although still appealable, the decision of the regional trial court reversing a municipal court order to strip Nueva Ecija congressional candidate Ria Vergara of her right to vote is, in effect, a vindication of her contention (in connection with an earlier disqualification case filed against her) that “she is a natural-born Filipino citizen and bona fide resident and registered voter in Cabanatuan City and therefore eligible to run for representative of Nueva Ecija’s third district.”
The cases seeking Vergara’s disqualification and exclusion from the list of Cabanatuan City’s registered voters were filed by Philip Piccio on the ground that she is not a Filipino citizen. Piccio is a known political ally of outgoing Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali who is also running for congressman of Nueva Ecija’s third district. Other issues, like she is sick of cancer, have also been raised against Vergara by her opponents.
As Vergara’s staunch supporter, I am still confident that these nuisance cases and issues against her are not going to succeed in blocking her candidacy, much less her noble advocacy to help and serve the poor and the less fortunate people of Nueva Ecija. To paraphrase an old saying, “You cannot put a good and talented woman down.”
A Harvard-trained business executive, Vergara is the chief executive officer and president of Cabanatuan Electric Corp. which, in 2014, was awarded the International Award for Leadership in Image and Quality by the Madrid (Spain)-based Global Trader Leaders’ Club. She has also been conferred the prestigious Asia-Pacific Entrepreneurship Award by Enterprise Asia, Asia’s foremost nongovernment organization for entrepreneurship. At present she is actively involved in charity work and projects for street children, orphans and infants (1-to-6-month-old) who have been deprived of kalingang ina (motherly love and care).
If elected, she vows to bring to the rest of Nueva Ecija’s third district the palpable “Pagbabago, Progreso,” (Reform, Prog-ress) program that her husband, Mayor Jay Vergara, has implemented in Cabanatuan, which today is one the nation’s best-performing and competitive component cities.
—GERTUDEZ M. DULLE, former barangay chair, MS Garcia, Cabanatuan City