Photos from James Yap's Instagram account, Dodot Jaworksi and Vergel Meneses' Facebook pages
MANILA – Current and past PBA stars tallied respective victories, not inside the court, but in the political arena after the May 9 elections.
Fan favorite James Yap of the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters was successful in his first foray into politics as he captured a spot in the council seat of San Juan City’s first district.
Yap landed fourth in the list with 21,427 garnered votes to secure one of the six councilor positions. Joining him is reelectionist and former PBA cager Paul Artadi, who ranked second in the local polls.
Yap was proclaimed in the early hours of Tuesday, alongside incumbent San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora.
Meanwhile, former Barangay Ginebra player Robert “Dodot” Jaworski Jr. also lorded over his opponents in the vice mayoralty race in Pasig City.
Jaworski received an overwhelming 205,250 votes against the second-running Junjun Concepcion, who only garnered 87,716 votes.
Jaworski ran under the party of Mayor Vico Sotto, who also won landslide in the city for his new three-year term.
Former PBA MVP and incumbent Bulakan town, Bulacan Mayor Vergel Meneses, on the other hand, was proclaimed as the top local executive of his town anew.
Meneses doubled the votes of the second placer, Patrick Neil Meneses, with 24,195 votes compared to the other Meneses’ 12,611 votes.
This will be Meneses’ second consecutive term as mayor of Bulakan, Bulacan.
Meanwhile, other sports personalities are also poised to clinch an elective position in the government as they lead in their respective local areas.
As of 3:17 p.m. Tuesday, former champion PBA player and UAAP coach Franz Pumaren was holding a slim lead in the congressional race in the third district of Quezon City.
Based on the partial and unofficial tally, Pumaren is ahead of Allan Benedict Reyes by almost 4,000 votes.
The basketball tactician has garnered 59,525 votes, while Reyes trails with 55,748 votes.
In San Fernando City, Pampanga, ex-PBA MVP and coach Ato Agustin is on pace to get a fresh three-year term as councilor.
Agustin has accumulated 59,628 votes, as of 3:32 p.m. Tuesday, to stay at sixth place of the councilor’s race – just well within the 10-seat quota.
Volleyball veteran Charo Soriano is also set to assume a seat in the Tuguegarao city council in Cagayan province.
In the partial and unofficial tally of votes, Soriano occupied second spot, obtaining 40,728 votes.
Bookmark the ABS-CBN News Halalan results page to see the partial unofficial tally of election returns.
For other updates, visit ABS-CBN News' live blog here.