‘Those who have less in life, should have more in law’.
Victorias City Mayor Javier Miguel Benitez said if he is elected representative of the 3rd District of Negros Occidental he will be guided by that popular slogan of former president Ramon Magsaysay.
Benitez, accompanied by his mother Nikki Lopez Benitez, filed his Certificate of Candidacy before the Commission on Elections at the Social Hall of the Capitol in Bacolod City Sunday afternoon.
He was accompanied by Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, Rep. Stephen Paduano (Abang Lingkod), the mayors and mayoral candidates of the 3rd District, and supporters waving blue balloons and shouting his name as drumbeaters added to the festive atmosphere.
The mayor, in an ambush interview, said he will continue the legacy of service of the Benitezes in the 3rd District and do even more.
His father Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez and uncle Secretary Jose Francisco Benitez, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority director general, had previously served as representatives of the 3rd District.
The Victorias mayor said his priorities in Congress would be education, health care, climate resiliency, digital technology and the unfinished bills of his uncle, former Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez.
He also wants to push for the creation of a department of tertiary education.
“I will do everything I can to serve the people of 3rd District well,” he said.
On a Partido Lakas ng Masa candidate running against him for congressman of the 3rd District, Benitez said as mayor of Victorias he had shown that he is pro-worker having raised the salaries of job order and casual employees in the city government twice, and seeing to the creation of a union to ensure workers’ rights.
Benitez said he is sad to be leaving Victorias but is happy he is leaving it in good hands under Vice Mayor Abelardo Bantug III who is running for mayor of the city.*