MANILA Mayor Honey Lacuna and Vice Mayor Yul Servo kicked off their campaign yesterday by thanking the Lord for their blessings, via a 6 a.m. Holy Mass at the Our Lady of Fatima Church in Sta. Mesa.
Lacuna and Servo were joined by their family members during the thanksgiving mass, from where they proceeded to go on their first house-to-house campaign in Sampaloc, where the residents met them with wild cheers, home-made signs of support and assurances of a landslide win.
The duo was joined by incumbent Congressman Edward Maceda and his wife, Dr. Giselle Maceda, who is now running in his stead, since his term already ends in June. Also with them were their candidates for Councilor, among them Science Reyes and chairman Bong Marzan, brother of former Manila City Administrator Jay Marzan.
The fourth district residents expressed pride that the mayor is a true-blue Sampaloc resident, who never transferred to another city only to continue claiming to be from Manila, as she continues to live in their old apartment there.
Both Lacuna and Servo are running under the Asenso Manileno which, for years until to date, had been the dominant ruling party in the city of Manila.
It will be recalled that during the 2022 elections, their party made a clean sweep of all the elective positions, from mayor, vice mayor, Congressmen to city councilors, with only Lacuna leading the team, as then mayor Isko Moreno was already busy campaigning in the provinces to run for President but placed fourth, having lost to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Leni Robredo and Manny Pacquiao.
The fourth district is a known bailiwick of Lacuna since she begun her political career as a Manila City Councilor representing the fourth district from 2004 to 2013. She then served as the city’s social welfare officer for three years before becoming the 27th Vice Mayor of Manila and the first woman to ever hold the position.
From being a Vice Mayor for two terms, from 2016 to 2022, Lacuna ran for mayor and handily won with the widest margin in the history of elections in Manila. She toppled her rivals that included Amado Bagatsing, garnering a huge number of votes where even if her opponents’ votes were combined, she still came on top with at least 200,000 edge.
Lacuna and Servo are running under the “Tapat at Totoo” brand of governance, with the backing of five of the six Congressmen, majority of the Manila City Council members and the Asenso Manileno stalwarts and more than 600 barangay chairmen out of the 896.
