A mayor of a Negros Occidental City, Mario Magno, who had just won his third term as the city chief of San Enrique during the recent national and local elections, died of cardiac arrest yesterday morning.
Since early this year, Magno, 64, has been in and out of hospital for complications from a recent kidney transplant.
“He suffered a cardiac arrest in hospital Thursday afternoon and died around 3:15 a.m. Friday,” a report stated.
Meanwhile, Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez said there was no need for the commission en banc to call for special elections and that they will apply the rules of succession of the local government code.
“The vice mayor will take over,” Jimenez said.
He said that Magno died after the elections and after he was proclaimed.
“So, since the election is over and he was proclaimed, the rules of succession will apply, which means that he will be succeeded by the vice mayor,” Jimenez explained further.
The Comelec mouthpiece said that the vice mayor will take his oath as the successor of the late mayor.
Then his position, Jimenez said, will be succeeded by the councilor who ranked number one or who got the highest number of votes during the elections.
“Once the leading councilor candidate moves up, the ranking of the other councilors will not change,” Jimenez further said.
Magno, a graduate of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, was La Carlota mill district development coordinator of the Philippine Sugar Research Institute before he joined San Enrique politics as councilor.
He is survived by his daughters Louise Magno-VanHoy and Elissa Mae Magno-Jardinico and grandchildren Jonathan Daniel, Samuel Elijah and Isaac Benjamin VanHoy.