Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia denied Saturday that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered her and her family to support Manuel Villar instead her own party's standard bearer Gilberto Teodoro. In an interview with ABS-CBN NEWS, Garcia dismissed rumors that he and her family has dropped Teorodo in favor of villar, the candidate of the Nationalista Party. Critics and analysts said the influential Garcia clan of Cebu is secretly backing the candidacy of Villar instead of Teodoro after the governor publicly announced last week that the clan has decided to support Villar's running mate Loren Legarda instead of the ruling party's Edu Manzano. Critics and analyst said they believe that Arroyo was secretly dumping Teodoro for Villar because the ruling party standard bearer has not doing well in the public pulse surveys. Teodoro has consistently been in the fourth place in the survey while Villar has surged to second place behind the Liberal Party's Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino. “We can very well guess who has employed his or her PR man to feed some bits and snippets of information that are distorted,” Garcia said but refuse to give names. Garcia said she has no reason to doubt Arroyo's support for Teodoro, and dismissed rumors that Arroyo's husband, First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo has asked her to secretly support Villar. “I have had no instruction from the president or FG. The president has firmly stated she is supporting Secretary Teodoro. I have no reason to doubt the president. I've talked to her. FG doesn't involve himself in politics,” Carcia said. Garcia said Arroyo has asked her party One-Cebu to support Teodoro. One-Cebu, headed by Garcia, is the dominant political party in the province of Cebu. “We talked about it months ago. Prior to Gibo's proclamation, the president had asked me whether we had decided who we should choose, and I told her we're carefully choosing a candidate for One-Cebu. She reminded me Gibo is the administration candidate, and that weighed heavily because it's the president talking,” she said. - The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Teodoro quit as party chairman after being told by Garcia that the First Gentleman had asked them to abandon Teodoro in favor of Villar. The Inquirer report also said Teodoro was furious when he came to Cebu to confront Garcia about the instruction to switch candidates. Garcia belied the report. – ABS
