2022 Elections: Will the Cuas dominate the top posts of Catanduanes?

Governor Joseph “Boboy” Cua of the island province of Catanduanes is running for reelection but this time he is being joined by Peter “Boss Te” Cua who is gunning for the vice gubernatorial seat. Interestingly, Boboy is under the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) ticket while Boss Te is with the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan (PDPLBN). Whether or not this is a strategy to silo campaign resources from the national candidates still remains a question.

Boboy is being challenged by Vice Governor Shirley Abundo who is running under Aksyon Demokratiko (Aksyon), and independent candidate Balbas Tanael. It looks, though, that Boboy needs to work harder because Shirley had been edging the governor in terms of vote-generation. In 2013 elections, Shirley got 59,054 votes as against Boboy with 57,197 votes. In 2019, Boboy only got 85,559 votes in 2019 while the vice governor generated 104,710 votes. The only factor in 2019 was the Cesar Sarmiento challenge in the gubernatorial race.

Competing against Boss Te in the seat to be vacated by Shirley are Natalio Popa Jr (Aksyon) and Odel Abichuela (Independent). It is expected, though, that the race will narrow down between San Andress Mayor Boss Te and Provincial Board Member, Natalio Popa Jr.

The list of candidates at the provincial level is as follows:

For Governor: