BONTOC, Mountain Province – Kathy Jyll Mayaen filed her candidacy for governor last Thursday at the provincial COMELEC office as substitute for her late father Leonard Mayaen.
The late governor filed his candidacy as an independent but suffered a cardiac arrest a day before the start of the week-long Lang-ay celebrations.
Among those seen with the younger Mayaen at the COMELEC office were mayors Anthony Wooden of Tadian, Abraham Akilit of Bauko, Franklin Odsey of Bontoc, and Gabino Ganggangan of Sadanga. Also with the group were board members Alfonso Kiat-ong, Stephen Afuyog, and Raul Lapon.
A look at her program of government attached to her Certificate of Candidacy reveals a list of actions to continue the plans of her late father. Aside from infrastructure development, included in her list are employment generation, health facility improvement, scholarship grants to needy but deserving students, and peace-related programs.
A lawyer by profession, the 37 year old substitute candidate is married to Nordberg Luis who, like her, is into the legal profession. She is the second child of the late governor.
For her part, lawyer Julia Elenita Tabangin-Cpuyan, newly-installed provincial election supervisor of Mountain Province, said that she immediately referred the matter to the regional and central offices of the Commission on elections (Comelec) for them to issue her the appropriate instructions on what to do with the received petition for substitution following earlier pronouncements from Chairman Andres Bautista that what will apply in the case of the vacated gubernatorial post is the conduct of special elections.
Capuyan cited she will just await the instructions from the Comelec central office before making a move on whether or not to make the necessary proclamation for the substitute candidate.
The provincial election supervisor claimed the matter is a sensitive issue among the province’s electorate that is why she had to refer the filed petition for substitution with the regional and central offices for their concurrence of what action to take so as not to prejudice the interest of all parties in the said matter.
By HENT
