The Great Electoral Mystery: What Happened to the Vice Mayor Vote in Kalibo?

By: Guillermo Sumbiling

KALIBO, Aklan- A mystery now clouds the recently concluded May 12, 2025 local elections in Kalibo. Not because of uncertainty in who won the mayoralty race—on the contrary, the results for Mayor were consistent with months of face-to-face survey data gathered across multiple barangays. What raises eyebrows and serious questions is the shocking reversal in the Vice Mayor results—a complete departure from months of survey trends, and a sharp contrast to the predictive accuracy observed in the same surveys for Mayor and the Sangguniang Bayan.

From November 2024 to the first week of May 2025, multiple voter preference surveys were conducted in Kalibo, face-to-face, across diverse demographics and locations. These surveys, spaced out over four different months, showed consistency in voter leanings, with a clear trend favoring the eventual winning candidate for Mayor. These same surveys also consistently projected a comfortable lead for a particular Vice Mayor candidate. Yet come Election Day, the outcome for Vice Mayor flipped entirely—contrary to the data, the expected frontrunner lost, while the opposing candidate emerged victorious.

What happened in the final days before the election?

We are now left with more questions than answers. Was there a last-minute shift in voter sentiment? If so, what triggered such a dramatic change? There was no major public controversy, no televised debate disaster, no viral scandal. No visible, documented surge of political momentum in the opponent’s favor. In fact, the final surveys conducted up to the first week of May still showed consistent results favoring the same Vice Mayor candidate.

Even more puzzling is that the surveys for Sangguniang Bayan candidates—conducted using the same methodology—produced results that closely mirrored the actual election outcome. This supports the argument that the survey tool was reliable. It performed well across other races. So what went wrong—specifically—in the Vice Mayoralty?

Was there a whisper campaign? Was there a last-minute political directive instructing sectors to drop a certain candidate? Or perhaps, was it a large-scale vote-buying operation that took place in the shadows during the critical final week?

These are uncomfortable questions, but necessary ones. In a time when we promote accountability, transparency, and the sanctity of the vote, we must not shy away from investigating electoral anomalies. Especially when the very tools we use to anticipate voter behavior—surveys that proved correct in every other race—fail spectacularly in just one.

This isn’t simply a case of “the surveys got it wrong.” This is a case of: What changed—and why? And most importantly: Who changed it?

Until we begin asking these questions openly and demand clarity, this mystery will remain an open wound in Kalibo’s democratic process.