TAGAYTAY CITY, Cavite--Cavite province is indebted to the Marcoses.
This was the gist of Governor Jonvic Remulla's message Tuesday, March 22 during an assemmbly of community leaders here. The assembly was attended by UniTeam presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos and his running mate, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
According to Remulla, the Marcos family--during the time that it was in Malacañang--did a lot for Cavite in terms of expansion and progrress.
"Lumaki ang Cavite dahil sa mga Marcos. Noong 1975 programa ni Madame Imelda na dalhin ang resettlement, lumaki ang Dasmariñas, nagkaroon ng GMA (General Mariano Alvarez), lumaki ang General Trias, lumaki ang Bacoor. Ito ay dahil sa mga Marcos (Cavite was able to expand because of the Marcoses. Madame Imelda Marcos had a resettlement project in 1975, Dasmariñas became larger, GMA came into being, and General Trias and Bacoor became larger as well)," he said.
Former first lady Imelda is Bongbong's mother. His father is the late strongman president Ferdinand Marcos.
"Mga kaibigan, umunlad ang Cavite dahil pinabuksan ni Ms. Imelda Marcos ang ating coastal road, ginawa po ni Presidente Marcos yan. Binuksan niya ang South Superhighway, ginawa po ni Marcos yan (My friends, Cavite experienced progress when Ms. Imelda Marcos opened our coastal road, President Marcos did that. He opened the South Superhighway, Marcos did that)," Remulla said.
"Ang... Imus, Bacoor, General Trias, and Dasamariñas, lahat ngayon naging lungsod dahil noong senador si Bongbong Marcos, sa kanyang committee, approved yung apat na city na dati munisipyo lang (Imus, Bacoor, General Trias, and Dasamariñas all became cities during Bongbong Marcos's stint as senator because it was his committee that approved their conversion from a municipality to a city," explained the governor.
This being election season, Remulla in the same speech then doubled down on his promise to deliver a big number of votes to Bongbong in the upcoming May polls.
"Mr. President," he said, referring to the UniTeam candidate, "Noong ako ay nagpayabang nang konti, sinabi ko makakakuha ka ng 800,000 na boto dito sa Cavite, katakot takot na ibang kulay ang nagalit sakin, ang yabang ko raw (When I was boasting before, I said that you will get 800,000 votes here and a lot of people from various other poltical colors got mad at me and said I was boastful).
"Sasagarin ko na ang yabang ko Mr. President, yung 800,000 pong yon ay hindi niyo boto, ayan lang po ang lamang na makukuha niyo dito sa Cavite (Let me boast some more Mr. President. The 800,000 that I'm talking about is not just votes, that will be your margin of victory here in Cavite)," he said.
Cavite is among the most vote-rich provinces in the Philippines, with an 2.35 million registered voters.