Iloilo City lone district Rep. Jam-jam Baronda said she regrets endorsing and supporting city mayor, Jerry Treñas, who earlier expressed the same regret of backing her bid in the 2019 elections.

In a very public fall-out between the two local officials that stemmed from alleged unfinished projects from both sides, Baronda on Friday, Sep. 5, said she owes her fellow Ilonggos "a painful but necessary apology" not for serving them, but for "once having believed in and supported" Treñas, her ex-ally.

"I regret ever giving him my trust. For decades, he has failed our city. He has abandoned our people to floods, buried us in debts, and crushed us further with his heartless 300 percent increase in real property tax," she said.

Baronda claimed that Trenas had "mastered the art of cosmetic governance" through "polishing plazas while homes drown in floodwaters, mortgaging our public markets while leaving basic infrastructure to rot".

"He has obsessed over blocking the projects I bring in—projects meant to give real, lasting solutions to our city’s problems," she said.

"This is not leadership. This is sabotage. This is betrayal—not just of political allies like Raul Gonzalez, Guillermo dela Llana, Mansueto Malabor, and his own brother-in-law Jose Espinosa III—but of the very people of Iloilo City," she added.

On Friday, Treñas, who apologized for his 2019 endorsement of Baronda, called the lady solon the “mother of delayed and palpak (failed) projects.”

Treñas said he only endorsed Baronda because she was the only remaining choice because his initial bets declined to run for the post.

“Today, the truth is painfully clear: many projects were either left unfinished, poorly implemented, or never even started,” Treñas said.

The mayor cited the millions-peso sports complex in Jalandoni Memorial High School, the Budburan Mansaya Creek project, the Arevalo multipurpose building, the uncompleted multipurpose buildings across the city, the unserviceable Department of Education (DepEd) school buildings, and "the over P1 billion worth of constructions along our waterways structures that worsened flooding in our communities and tragically contributed to the loss of lives as some of the failed projects".

“These funds were not gifts… For this grave mistake in judgment, I offer my deepest and most humble apology to all Ilonggos for having endorsed and supported Jamjam Baronda in 2019,” he said.

But Baronda claimed Treñas “continues to speak and act as if Iloilo City belongs to him alone". She found this disturbing.

“I will not cower. I will not bow to the politics of fear and intimidation. I will fight—for truth, for justice, and for the future our children deserve,” she said.