Palawan residents reject splitting the province into 3
It’s final: Palawan remains as one province.
The Commission on Elections’ Provincial Plebiscite Board of Canvassers proclaimed on 5:30 pm March 16 that the “no” vote won in the plebiscite that asked residents if they agreed to ratify Republic Act 11259 which splits Palawan into Palawan Del Norte, Palawan Oriental and Palawan Del Sur.
Winning in 19 out of 23 municipalities, the “no” vote garnered 172,304 against the “yes” vote with 122,223, according to a 5 pm post on Comelec's Facebook page.
LOOK: Official partial results of the #PalawanPlebiscite as of 5:00 P.M., March 16, 2021.
Posted by COMELEC on Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Grassroots-initiated One Palawan, with few resources and largely reliant on campaigning in social and traditional media to gather support, described the March 13 plebiscite here as a duel between Bible characters, David and Goliath. “And David hurls a stone from his sling and hits Goliath in the center of his forehead, Goliath falls on his face to the ground,” campaigner Cynthia del Rosario earlier wrote on a Facebook status.
In a Rappler interview, Del Rosario said: “ The big lesson for the politicians who attempted to divide Palawan into 3 is to make sure that the desire actually came from the people. They need to consult and include the people from the beginning. The desire of a few cannot win over the desire of the majority.”
One Palawan was up against the provincial government, led by Palawan Governor Jose Alvarez, a business magnate and prime proponent of RA 11259, which was a reincarnation of similar thwarted proposals by politicians, one dated as early as the 1960s. When Alvarez won in the 2016 elections, he mounted a strong push to revive the proposal and met with municipal mayors, barangay chairpersons, and local business people to gather support for the bid.
In December 2017, the provincial legislature passed a resolution in support of the move. The bill breezed through Congress, passed by the House in August 2018 and the Senate in November that same year. President Rodrigo Duterte signed the bill into law on April 13, 2019, setting into motion a rigorous online and offline debate among residents.
The coalition opposition group claimed that the law contained provisions that go against the Philippine Constitution and the Local Government Code, including amendments to the natural wealth-sharing agreement, non-consultation of the the general public, and exclusion of Puerto Princesa residents in the consultation and in the plebiscite.
On June 26, 2019, One Palawan took its case to the Supreme Court, hoping a writ of prohibition would render Republic Act 11259 null and void. But the highest court, in a decision penned by Associate Justice Andres B. Reyes Jr. on March 10, 2020, ruled in favor of the assailed law, voting 15-0. The initial plebiscite schedule was set for May 11, 2020, but it was postponed due to the pandemic lockdown and only pushed through last weekend.
“We knew that it is going to be a difficult battle for us when we lost in the Supreme Court. The proponents held all the cards…We had to face them in the plebiscite knowing that the odds were not in our favor. They know the game pretty well and we didn't. We just relied on volunteerism or 'bayanihan' since we didn't have enough funds,” said del Rosario.
“Our efforts paid off, the people of Palawan have woken up. They have started to self-organize and mobilize in their communities during the last days of the campaign period. We won thru the collective effort of the people of Palawan.”
https://www.rappler.com/nation/no-votes-win-palawan-plebiscite
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