3 namesakes vie for mayor

SANTIAGO, Isabela – Three candidates with the same name, including nicknames, are vying for the mayoralty post of this province’s premier city the coming May polls.

City Mayor Amelita “Amy” Navarro’s bid for a third and final term as mayor is being threatened by at least two virtually unknown rivals with the same name, as well as two more mayoralty bets – a former congressman and a former city vice mayor.

Navarro, a Lakas-Kampi-CMD bet, hopes that the Commission on Elections would grant her motion to delist the names of one Amy “Amelita” Navarro and her daughter, Emma “Amy” Navarro, from the final official list of the city’s mayoralty bets.

Their inclusion, she said, might only confuse the electorate on who the real candidates are and those who are only after derailing her bid for a third mayoral term through similarities of their names.

“The poll body is already hearing our case. We hope our motion for the disqualification of these two candidates would be granted,” said Navarro, who blamed her political rivals for putting up these “obviously” unknown candidates “for apparent reasons.”

Another candidate, one Sammy Navarro, a relative of the mayor but allegedly identified with the incumbent’s rival, former city vice mayor Armando Tan, is also seeking the city’s top post.

“My political opponents have been throwing everything against me, concocting negative issues against my administration just to bring me down, including putting up candidates against me with similar names and nicknames,” said the mayor.

Observers said, amid the presence of the lesser-known Navarros, the real mayoralty race is only confined among the incumbent, who is considered as still the candidate to beat, Tan and former congressman Anthony Miranda of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino.

Tan, running under the Liberal Party, lost to incumbent Navarro in the 2007 elections via a slim margin. -- CL