Vico Sotto’s Giting ng Pasig showed principles can win an election

At dusk on Tuesday, April 29, Vico Sotto and the rest of Giting ng Pasig campaigned in a remote neighborhood of Barangay Pinagbuhatan, Pasig’s southern frontier, where the city’s namesake river meets the vast Laguna de Bay.

The neighborhood was cramped and dense. A basketball half-court enclosed by a chain link fence was the only space wide enough for the reelectionist mayor and the members of his slate to hold their program.

The program itself was straightforward. No one sang or danced, except Maro Martires, a 39-year-old city councilor running for a second term. He opened his segment with a full-throated rendition of Tom Jones’ “Delilah” and then talked about the city government’s fiscal triumphs under his watch as the council’s finance chief.

The rest, including Representative Roman Romulo and Vice Mayor Dodot Jaworski, did their best to liven up, with punchlines and anecdotes, their repertoire of enumerating and explaining the reasons “good governance,” as exemplified by the Sotto administration, was the right track. They cautioned the people, too, to not fall for their opponents’ wiles.

This bare-bones presentation was a gamble, because Giting’s opponents — construction magnate Sarah Discaya and her slate, Team Kaya This — regaled campaign audiences with a party band, dancers, and dazzling audiovisual presentations on LED screens at every stop. At their campaign kickoff on March 28, Team Kaya This treated the crowd to Jollibee takeout.

Giting had none of the fanfare nor the goodies to spare, but people came and listened. In the Pinagbuhatan caucus, the crowd filled the enclosure and spilled into the surrounding alleys. At other stops, people jostled for spots at adjacent windows and even climbed trees for a good view, though they knew this bunch didn’t come with giveaways.

That Giting won an unprecedented 15-0 sweep of Pasig’s elective posts in the May 12 elections bore out Sotto’s proposition that they could win the election by talking to the people in earnest.

They were the incumbent, and they held the majority in the city council — utilizing city hall’s resources would have been easy. But Sotto ruled out trapo — shorthand for “traditional politician” — tactics: no hakot (rent-a-crowd), no trolls, no handouts. Even if the other camp did exactly these.

Sleepless nights

“Some of us were terrified, to the point that we couldn’t sleep. We were troubled by their spending,” Martires told Rappler, referring to Team Kaya This’ campaign.

Martires entered politics in 2013 as a barangay councilor. His father was the late Yoyong Martires, the PBA player and entertainment personality who often sang “Delilah” on TV, and who became Pasig’s vice mayor from 2004 to 2013.

“I’ve seen many elections. I knew that [our opponents] knew what they were doing,” said Martires.

“The amount of resources that our opponents were using against us was unheard of. It was very bothersome,” Jaworski, who won a second term as vice mayor, told Rappler.

Two reliable sources separately told Rappler that the Discaya camp had earmarked billions of pesos for its campaign. One of the sources said Team Kaya This had already spent a billion pesos when the official campaign period started on March 28. 

This is not difficult to imagine. Discaya had been running charity drives, soup kitchens, and medical missions long before the 2025 election season. But in the second half of 2024, around the time Discaya announced plans to run for mayor, her charity efforts grew in scale and frequency, and started bearing the “Kaya This” brand. Online pages broadcasting Discaya’s activities came out of the woodwork, along with coverage by several national outlets.

A study by Rappler’s sister company The Nerve found that Discaya benefitted from widespread, coordinated, and inauthentic online behavior. Social media pages ran smear campaigns against Sotto. Discaya disavowed all these, but in a chance interview on election day, she referred to “vloggers ko” (my vloggers) as the way she got her message out to the public.

At the miting de avance, Team Kaya This mounted a full-on street concert, with celebrities including Andrew E and Tom Rodriguez providing entertainment. Giting had only a wooden platform and no production numbers.

But the most telling aspect of Discaya’s campaign were the individual handouts, which her camp claimed they stopped distributing during the official campaign period. Handouts, after all, could be construed as vote buying, an election offense.

Nevertheless, many Pasig residents told Rappler they received bags of rice and grocery items from people they perceived to be Discaya’s staffers, even while the campaign was in full swing. To many Pasigueños, Discaya became synonymous with ayuda or dole-outs.

Discaya’s company, St. Gerrard Construction General Contractor and Development Corporation, was the number one contractor of the Rodrigo Duterte administration. That she and her backers had deep pockets was evident in her campaign.

Although a rookie politician and a first-time voter, Discaya posed a threat that put Giting on their toes. Would money talk? Near voting day, Sotto urged residents to guard against vote buying.

“‘Yun ang nakakatawa, kasi before the campaign period pa, alam na namin na ang daming mga binababang mga kung ano-ano, ang daming mga ‘biyaya’ na binibigay sa kanto-kanto,” Jaworski said. (That’s what’s funny, because even before the campaign period, we knew there was a lot of stuff, a lot of “blessings” being given away at street corners.)

“And Mayor Vico and I were talking about it and we said, ‘Isn’t it funny that the exact same politics that was rejected by the people in 2019 is the kind of politics that they want to bring back?’ And for me, for us, we were like, ‘First of all, are we doing something wrong? Why are they trying to bring back the old?’”

Landslide win

The son of PBA icon and former senator Robert Jaworski, Dodot, now 53 years old, served a single term as Pasig congressman from 2004 to 2007. He then ran for mayor against the incumbent Bobby Eusebio, who won by a relatively small margin of less than 10,000 votes. It would be another 12 years before Sotto would end the Eusebios’ 27-year run at city hall, in 2019.

Jaworski thought he was done with politics, but Sotto invited him to be his running mate in 2022, as he was forming Giting. In his first term, Sotto had a hard time instituting reforms because he had no allies in the city council. For his second term, Sotto wanted the backing of a full slate of councilors. The vice mayor is crucial, because he heads the council.

“‘Yung mga sinisigaw ni Mayor Vico na pagbabago, ‘yun din ‘yung sinisigaw ng mga Pasigueño noon pa,” Jaworski said. (The reforms Mayor Vico has been crying out for are the same ones Pasigueños have also been crying out for, for the longest time.)

Sotto introduced some far-reaching reforms. His clean-up of the city’s procurements has led to a more-than-doubling of its budget, from P10 billion in 2019 to P22.4 billion in 2025. Social services were expanded and rationalized. Local government workers were put on permanent contracts. Vulnerable sectors now get regular cash aid. Students get a full kit of supplies and uniforms, down to their shoes. Residents are entitled to free hospitalization and dialysis. Every family receives a Noche Buena package at Christmas.

Under Sotto, Pasig’s atmosphere has totally changed, Jaworski noticed upon his return to city hall. The changes he envisioned when he ran for mayor are now the reality.

“I really commend Mayor Vico for his leadership. Kasi iba siya talaga. Iba. Even at my age, sa tagal ko na sa politika, I learned and I’m still learning a lot from him.” (Because he’s really something else. Something else. Even at my age, in my many years in politics…)

But Discaya tried to portray Sotto as haughty and elitist, and his administration, inept and out of touch. She tried to make “good governance” sound like a bad thing. She and her allies insinuated corruption against Sotto. An ex-bureaucrat who admitted to being her supporter accused Sotto of vote-buying.

Sotto’s landslide win — 351,392 votes to Discaya’s 29,591 — showed her narrative fell flat.

“That’s where our opponents went wrong. To make up stories, especially about Mayor Vico, whom the whole world knows is doing the right thing here in our city?” said Jaworski, referencing Sotto’s accolades from the US State Department and the World Health Organization.

“And to make him seem like the bad guy? Hindi talaga naniwala ang tao (the people really didn’t buy it).”

Shane Villanueva, a Barangay Palatiw resident who runs a rice stall in the Pasig City Mega Market, said Sotto’s good governance is palpable. She voted straight for Giting.

“Nakikita naman po natin lahat ng pagbabago dito sa Pasig (Everyone can see the changes here in Pasig),” Villanueva told Rappler. She lauded improvements at city hall and in the marketplace, and the “very professional” way the slate conducted their campaign.

“He really eradicated corruption here in Pasig,” Gerald Diaz, who operates a tricycle in the downtown area, told Rappler in Filipino. One of Sotto’s first actions as mayor was to discipline its traffic enforcers, who were notorious for extorting motorists.

Sotto waiving fees for tricycle franchises was a big help, too. Diaz said he used to pay around P2,000 every three years for it. Sotto said money saved from corruption freed up city hall to cut the rates of government services.

“Nalinis niya lahat. Kaya straight kami sa Giting.” (He cleaned up everything. That’s why we voted straight for Giting.)

Dignity, equality

Sotto selected members for Giting based on competence, track record, and — above all, he said — trustworthiness. To want admission into Giting meant agreeing to not put their names and faces on public projects, not directly handle any of the city’s funds, and to shun all the trappings of patronage, even if it meant declining solicitations from their voter bases.

In place of the seemingly innocent little dole-outs they were used to handing out to the little people who sought their assistance on, say, medical expenses, the city councilors now refer their constituents to the proper channels, with the assurance of a fair and reliable process.

Politicos used to have access to the local government’s money. Now, Martires said, the only money they touch is their monthly salary.

“What we can assure you is that 100% of the [city’s] money goes to the people and not to anyone else. Everything goes through the right process.”

Martires said they’re working on making processes more efficient. But what all this means is, instead of building patronage around politicians, the city government now focuses on addressing the deeper problems that leave people needing aid in the first place.

“That 15-0 [victory] is about the dignity of Pasigueños. It’s about how the government regards them,” Martires said.

Giting did not treat the people like beggars. They didn’t talk down to them. At sorties, the members explained issues and answered people’s questions with diligence and compassion.

But none of it would have worked without credibility — if they didn’t walk their talk.

“You cannot beat the truth. You cannot beat reality. You cannot be genuine if you’re really not,” said Martires. “I think that message came through.”

“I guess it’s the authenticity that we have with the Pasigueños,” said Angelu de Leon, the ‘90s teen sweetheart who won a second term as city councilor.

“Principles really won the elections,” De Leon told Rappler. “And what served as our anchor was the conviction that all Pasigueños are equal.”

Starting on June 30, Giting ng Pasig will take full control of the city council. The objective for the next three years, Jaworski and Sotto told Rappler in separate interviews, is to institutionalize reforms and galvanize them into the city’s culture so that they will endure, regardless of who wins future elections.

“I think what we have to do is also transform the people of Pasig, to have ownership over Giting,” said Jaworski.

“Giting,” in English, means “valor”.

“Na sila ang magigiting, hindi kami.” (That they’re the valiant ones, not us.) – Rappler.com