NEWSFLASH

LUCENA HAS NEW MAYOR AFTER RECALL ELECTION

Lucena City, May 14, 2000 - Former Lucena Mayor Ramon Talaga Jr. overwhelmingly won the May 12 recall elections last Friday, garnering a total of 25,937 votes while the incumbent Mayor Bernard Tagarao, who served as mayor for less than two years, obtained 13,016 votes.

Lawyer Bella Putong, Lucena City election officer of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), said Talaga was proclaimed as the duly elected mayor and took his oath of office on the evening of election day.

Comelec records show a heavy voter turnout of 48 percent. The election was peaceful and orderly, with not a single untoward incident reported.

The recall election, the first of its kind in Southern Tagalog, was the offshoot of a Preparatory Recall Assembly (PRA) formed by Barangay Captain Wienfredo Rodas of Barangay 9 last June, 1999. A temporary restraining order (TRO) was issued by a court but the judge was later restrained by the Supreme Court, thus paving the way for the holding of the recall election.

Talaga, who lost to Tagarao on the May, 1998, election by more than 4,000 votes, vowed to continue the projects he had started the first time he was mayor.

"We will put the right leadership directions and bring Lucena City back on the path of economic progress," he said.