Richard Gomez plans to run for mayor of Ormoc—wife

Richard Gomez: Future Ormoc mayor?. CEBU DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—Actor Richard Gomez plans to run for mayor of Ormoc City in next year’s elections, said his wife, Representative Lucy Torres Gomez of the Leyte’s 4th congressional district.

“You know, it’s better if the mayor is an ally,” said Lucy, who defeated Eufrocino Codilla Jr., brother of Ormoc Mayor Eric Codilla, in the 2010 congressional race.

Gomez ran for that congressional position in the May 2010 elections but was disqualified for lack of resident status. Lucy, whose family has vast landholdings in Ormoc, replaced her husband in the congressional race.

Lucy said they consulted several barangay (village) officials in Ormoc and her husband made up his mind after the barangay officials pledged to support his mayoral bid. She did not say, however, how many officials in Ormoc’s 110 barangays promised to support her husband.

Mayor Codilla, who is now on his third and last term, appeared unfazed by Gomez’s entry into Ormoc’s political scene, saying everybody was welcome to run for mayor.

“Let us listen to what this stranger (Richard) can offer to Ormoc,” Codilla said in an interview with the Ormoc-based weekly paper Western Leyte Express.

The Codilla camp has yet to announce who would run for mayor in Ormoc. But talk was rife that the family patriarch, Eufrocino Codilla, may run again for mayor.

The elder Codilla was mayor of Ormoc from 1992 to 2001 and was congressman for nine years from 2001 to 2010.

The Gomez couple belongs to the Liberal Party while the Codillas are allies of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

On Tuesday, Lucy was with Secretary Jesse Robredo of the Department of the Interior and Local Government during the oath taking of mayors, vice mayors, town councilors and barangay officials in the fourth district.

Among those who joined the LP were Mayors Saturnino Medina, Jr. of Isabel; Michael Torrevillas of Matag-ob; and Sixto de la Victoria of Albuera.

But Mayor Ramon Oñate of Palompon, an ally of Lucy, was absent.

The other mayors of the district—Mayor Codilla of Ormoc and his brother Mayor Elmer Codilla of  Kananga and Mayor Marcos Antonio Solaña—are political opponents of the congresswoman.