Before the 2025 midterm elections, incumbent Cebu Governor Gwendolyn “Gwen” Garcia was poised to keep her position for a fifth term. But on May 13, just after election day, Pamela “Pam” Silagan Baricuatro was proclaimed the next governor of Cebu.
When Garcia first took office in 2004, her family had already established its power in the province through her father, former Governor Pablo Paras Garcia. After him, Gwen Garcia served three consecutive terms as Cebu governor, from 2004 to 2013. She went on to serve six years in Congress as a representative of the province, before returning to the local government.
But, as Baricuatro said in an ANC interview, “the people of Cebu have had enough.” The PDP-Laban bet won over 340,000 more votes than Garcia in the gubernatorial elections, which suggests that Cebu’s voting constituents chose a new leadership.
An Emphasis on Healthcare
Olayvar said many Cebuanos were also dissatisfied with Garcia’s public service. “A lot of the criticism points out that Garcia’s administration is too focused on traditional tourism: come here to Cebu, visit our place, go to our beaches, watch the whale sharks, and the like,” he said. “[The LGU] has not invested much in provincial public service, most especially healthcare.”
He pointed out that the province lacked bigger hospitals outside the provincial capital Cebu City. “For example, if you’re staying in the southernmost part of Cebu, you’re going to have to travel around four hours to the city for a medical emergency.” According to Olayvar, this was a weak point that Baricuatro used to her advantage, using it as her main platform for what became a successful gubernatorial campaign.
The shakeup in Cebu’s gubernatorial elections further highlights that healthcare remains one of Filipino voters’ top priorities — and that the issues they care about do influence election results.
In January, a Social Weather Stations survey showed that healthcare was one of the top concerns of voters going into the election period. Of 1,800 respondents nationwide, 93 percent said strengthening the healthcare system is a priority platform for them, only third to job creation and food security.
Lashing Out
According to Niño Olayvar, a political science professor from the University of San Carlos, Garcia was quick to “antagonize” political opponents and critics. “Everyone — even just a private individual — who criticized was practically persecuted by Gov. Garcia,” he said. He cited an incident where Garcia had publicly lashed out at a private individual for criticizing the LGU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Commission on Human Rights condemned Garcia for revealing the private information of the dissenting netizen, including her address and the number of children she had, in a video posted to Facebook.
In other instances, Garcia lodged cyber libel complaints against critics in 2023 and 2025. In April of this year, she filed 10 complaints against two vloggers who accused her of corruption.
Olayvar also cited an incident during the 2023 Pasigarbo sa Sugbo in Carcar City, where Garcia yanked the microphone off a podium in her frustration at technical difficulties and accused the lights and sound provider, a Carcar-based business, of ruining the event. Carcar is the bulwark of the Garcia-allied Gullas family, Olayvar said. But after Pasigarbo sa Sugbo, Garcia lost favor with the city’s residents and business owners.
“Our electoral politics is still at the level where it’s still being negotiated locally,” he said. “The local mayors or local leaders really withdrew their support in the last minute of the elections.”
In contrast to Garcia’s years of experience in local government, Baricuatro is a neophyte. In 2015, she founded the Visayas-based food bank Simply Share Foundation, which was put under investigation by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in April 2025 for allegations of illegal solicitation.
Baricuatro has the backing of PDP-Laban, the party chaired by former President Rodrigo Duterte, while Garcia and One Cebu are backed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Olayvar said that a large majority of Cebu City supports the Duterte political family, which would have influenced the votes in the city.
But he also told Rolling Stone Philippines that Duterte’s endorsement “doesn’t automatically translate” to votes, noting the losses of Duterte-backed re-electionists former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and former Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes.
