LA TRINIDAD, Benguet(PIA) -- Incumbent officials of this capital town were given fresh three-year term after winning in the May 9, 2022 elections.
Mayor Romeo Salda and Vice Mayor Roderick Awingan were both re-elected in their posts winning by landslide against their rivals.
Salda had 28,221 votes while his rival incumbent Councilor and PCL Chairman Nestor “Bobot” Fongwan Jr. had 14,281 votes.
Awingan had 25,063 votes while councilor Renato Tereng had 11,669 and Osborn Visaya had 4,706.
Five Sangguniang Bayan members were also re-elected - John Botiwey who had 26,530 votes, Jayson Dangwa with 25,936, Guiller Galwan with 23,357, Ted Costina Walang with 20,341 and Francis Lee with 19,739.
There are three new council members -Bahong Barangay Chairman Belmer Elis( 21,118 votes), former councilor Henry Kipas (9,006) , and former Municipal Legal Officer Bartolome Baldas.
Except for Kipas of the PROMDI party, all the newly elected La Trinidad municipal officials belong to the United Benguet Party headed by Benguet Congressman-elect Eric Go Yap.
During the proclamation ceremonies on May 10, La Trinidad Election Officer Atty. Romeo Aguilar thanked the different election stakeholders, candidates, teachers, police LGU personnel and the members of the community for their participation and cooperation which led to a successful elections in the municipality.
Aguilar said that despite some challenges during the election process such as glitches in some vote counting machines and sending of election results, there was no major election- related incident in the municipality.
The last to transmit the election results in the municipality was Clustered Precint 72 of Tawang Elementary School. The VCM at the said school malfunctioned at around 7AM on election day and the contingency VCM only came around 3PM but the voting proceeded.
After thevoting closed at 7PM, the electoral boards had to batch feed all the 600 ballots to the contingency VCM which took time.At 9:00AM on May 10 2022, election results were successfully transmitted to the Municipal Board of Canvassers.
Allegedly, the malfunction was caused by the use of a ballpen in shading the ballots which may have damaged the sensor of the VCM.
Aguilar said there was a high voters turnout in La Trinidad for the 2022 NLE at 85.9 percent. (JDP/RMC- PIA CAR)
