Mar again lost in town named after grandpa

COTABATO CITY – Senatorial aspirant Mar Roxas was defeated again in a town in North Cotabato named after his grandfather, Pres. Manuel Roxas in this year’s elections.

Roxas of Liberal Party was at No. 18 with 2,447 votes in the ongoing tabulation for senatorial candidates by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) and Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV).

Pres. Roxas’ 41 of 47 clustered precincts have been transmitted to Comelec.

Nationwide, Roxas is at No. 16 spot among senatoriables with 9,582,027 votes as of 4:50 p.m. KBP-PPCRV counting where 95.11 percent of the election returns already processed.

In 2016 polls, Mar Roxas, the LP standard bearer, lost by overwhelming margin.

President Roxas, a first-class farming municipality with a voting population of 26,771, went for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in the presidential contest, who got 17,548 votes.

Then, Roxas had only 1,462. The town is mainly populated by people from Negros Occidental and other provinces in the Visayas and Luzon.

Before the settlers arrived after World War II and occupied a large portion of the Arakan plains, it was a Manobo community known as Barrio Kabacan, according to the provincial government.

In 1957, the Negrense migrants formed the La Castellana Home Seekers Association and engaged in farming.

As roads were built and forests were cleared, the barrio became a bustling logging area and eventually became a municipality a decade later. (EOF)