Vice Governor Jeffrey Ferrer called the Negros Occidental campaign for Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “a big victory.”
They were able to reduce the 571,00 lead of Leni Robredo in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City over Marcos in the 2016 vice presidential race to 35,883 in the 2022 presidential race, Ferrer said at a press conference in Bacolod on Wednesday, May 11.
“For us, this is a big victory, meaning this is not a pink country,” Ferrer said.
Robredo garnered 638,932 votes in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City on Monday while Marcos had 603,049, Ferrer said.
Marcos won in Bacolod, and lost in Negros Occidental by a very small margin, he said.
The people have spoken, a 35,883 lead is miniscule considering that Negros Occidental has 1.94 million voters, he said.
Marcos has won the elections nationwide with 31,080,744 votes counted so far compared to Robredo’s 14,810,245, Ferrer added.
Ferrer congratulated the 28 mayors and six representatives of Negros Occidental, and the Marcos supporters for their feat. “We delivered the votes,” he said.
The vice governor was joined by Esteban “Sonny” Coscolluela, Negros Occidental spokesman for Marcos, and Board Member Jose Benito Alonso at the press conference Wednesday.
We had a big mountain climb, with Marcos having lost to Robredo by 571,000 votes in Negros Occidental six years ago, the performance of the mayors and volunteers caused a classic turnaround that wiped out her lead by more than 500,000, Coscolluela stressed.
A big win for Robredo in Western Visayas was neutralized, Coscolluela added.
Ferrer said those who did not win should accept defeat, and with the elections over “we should all get back to work.”
“The best revenge to my bashers was winning,” Ferrer said, noting that he had been maligned on social media for supporting Marcos by those who did not agree with his choice.
They should respect the choice of others, Ferrer said.
“It is time to reconcile, hate politics must stop,” Coscolluela said.
Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, who supported Robredo, congratulated Ferrer on the winning of his candidate.*