"It's only the heart that is breaking for awhile... but the spirit and soul shall fight forever for a better Bohol... Sa tanan nituo ug misuporta, daghang salamat. We love you."
This is the message relayed by actor-director Cesar Montano through his wife Sunshine Cruz's Twitter account following his defeat in the recent elections where he ran for a gubernatorial seat in his hometown in Bohol.
As of 11:06 today, May 12, the partial unofficial tally shows Montano accumulating a total of 126,725 votes against leading candidate Edgardo Chatto's 184,395. Montano trails behind second placer Julius Caesar Herrera, who has 139,735 votes under his name.
Sunshine also mentioned that despite the heartbreaking loss, they are satisfied with the amount of effort they all invested in the campaign.
"I know we did a good fight even without buying a single vote and with just a few volunteers who helped us with the campaign, I can proudly say we did great! Daghang salamat to the Boholanos who believed in Cesar's vision and Boholanos who supported my husband. Pinangga ko kayo Boholanos!" wrote Sunshine in her Twitter account.
The celebrity couple though did not hide their dissatisfaction in the entire system and procedures implemented in their province.
Sunshine's entry on the actual election day mentioned "vote buying" allegedly on the part of some of the candidates. Some of the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) machines deployed, added Sunshine, were also defective, forcing some of the voters to flee the precincts and go home instead.
"Only half of the voters were able to vote in one precinct here in Baclayon. This is really sad. Vote buying and palpak na PCOS machines," complained Sunshine.
Montano reportedly had a good start during the tallying but eventually lost steam as Chatto and Herrera started piling up numbers based on the total figures submitted by the other precincts.
This is Montano's second failed attempt to clinch a government post. His senate bid in 2007 turned out unsuccessful as well.
Montano also suffered a personal blow weeks before this year's election when his son from his first marriage, Christian Angelo, died in an apparent case of suicide. The actor-director immediately resumed his campaign albeit nursing a heavy heart following the cremation of his 23-year-old son.
CLICK HERE to read more election-related articles.