ANGELES CITY – The Partido Abe Kapampangan (PAK) has endorsed Alexander Cauguiran for the mayoralty post of this highly urbanized chartered city on Thursday.
The endorsement was made in what was described as an emotionally- filled general assembly of the local political party that catapulted now three-term Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan to office.
“The party endorsed Alex and will support him to become the next mayor of Angeles,” said incumbent city councilor Jae Flores, newly elected party vice president.
Cauguiran was given full authority through a party resolution to form his slate for the May 2019 local election, he added.
However, Cauguiran has yet to announce the names of his vice mayor and councilors.
PAK is as a “multisector grassroots mass organization” which was the same machinery founded by Cauguiran that helped win the elections for Mayor Pamintuan in 2013 and 2016.
“Some people from the Pamintuan circle actually attempted to unseat me from the party (but a) vast majority of the members prevailed. We will lead Angeleños and, hopefully, I will not fail them,” Cauguiran said.
Around 500 card-bearing party leaders representing the city’s 33 barangays and various sectors held the general assembly to elect the new set of officers headed by Cauguiran who retained his position as party president.
Pamintuan was reelected as party chairman amid his controversial declaration to support incumbent Vice Mayor Brian Nepomuceno, a scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families.
But Cauguiran said even without Pamintuan’s support, the party reelected the mayor as its chairman “in honor of his outstanding leadership to the city.”
Cauguiran is the former chief of staff of Pamintuan.
“Alex founded the party. He nurtured and strengthened it to become what it is today,” newly elected party vice chairperson and former city councilor Maricel “Marang” Morales, said, adding that Cauguiran was to become the obvious choice of the party because of his significant role in it.
Cauguiran is the current president of the Clark International Airport Corp. and is widely credited for the increased flights and passenger volume of the previously ignored airport.
