Pascual Racuyal
Pascual B. Racuyal (Tinago, Cebu City, 1911 – Bulacan, 2004) was a Filipino eccentric and aspirant for the Philippine presidency, whose perseverance despite total lack of success at that venture earned him folk status. Racuyal sought the presidency in every Philippine presidential election beginning in 1935 (against Manuel L. Quezon and Emilio Aguinaldo) until 1986 (against Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino).
There were questions as to Racuyal’s mental stability. Among his promises should he be elected to the presidency was to construct roads out of plastic to prevent their further deterioration. When he invited Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson to be his running mate in the 1953 presidential elections, the latter called Racuyal “strictly fiction, utterly fantastic and incredible”. Nonetheless, as time passed, his repeated candidacy provided for an amusing mild diversion to a frequently heated election atmosphere.
Racuyal, a mechanic by profession, was never a credible political figure at any point in his life. His final attempt at the presidency in 1986 was thwarted after the Commission on Elections disqualified him as a “nuisance candidate”.
He grew up in Barangay Tinago in Cebu City and eventually, became a mechanic at an early age. An unknown fanaticism and will urge him to run for presidency, eventually leading to his flight to Manila, where-in he argued and debated with the National Political Figures and became a constant mock-up comedian of sort every presidential election. His family in Cebu as well as his neighbors think that he might be losing his balls, but was not able to dissuade him.
He spent the years in-between the Presidential elections in Bulacan, rearing his family. He continued to be a mechanic or perhaps, engaged into other livelihood works. He had never returned to Cebu ever since.
After his defeat in the 1986 Presidential Elections, he faded from the spotlights as a consequence of his old age (75 at that time) and was thought to have an illness.
Racuyal died poor and forgotten in history sometime in 2004 in Bulacan and was buried at an undisclosed location. He was around 92–93 years old.
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