All winners in Cebu proclaimed

CEBU, Philippines - The provincial office of the Commission on Elections has confirmed that all barangays in Cebu have proclaimed their winners as of yesterday.

Comelec Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said that all winning barangay officials have been proclaimed, with some as early as Monday evening while other cities and municipalities completed proclamation yesterday noon.

Based on the records of the Comelec provincial office, the earliest municipality that completed proclamation was the town of Tudela which affirmed that all officials of  the 11 barangays of the town have been proclaimed by 10 p.m. last Monday.

The last municipality to complete the tallying of votes was Tuburan which had 54 barangays. According to the Provincial Comelec, Tuburan completed proclamation of winners by 7 a.m. yesterday. Some barangays in the town also needed to break the tie between some candidates which caused the delay.

Within Metro Cebu, the Cebu City south district was the last to finish the tallying and announcement of winners at past noon yesterday.

Compared to the north district which has 46 barangays and finished proclamation around 7 a.m. yesterday, the south district only has 34 barangays but has more residents and voters.

In all, the province has 1,203 barangays and over 2.3 million registered voters, which is why Cebu is considered the most vote-rich province in the country.

According to Arthur Patiga, Comelec election assistant at the Office of the Provincial Election Supervisor, all municipalities and cities have completed the tallying of votes but there are positions for two barangay councilors in Lapu-Lapu City that need to be settled because of a tie.

He said the Board of Election Tellers in the said barangays of the city will convene the counting by November 2 while the town of Samboan and Dumanjug will also be convening today to also break the tie between barangay councilors to determine their ranking.

But in general, Castillano said all the winners have been proclaimed.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes earlier announced that they were not able to resolve petitions to disqualify nuisance candidates due to time constraints. With this, he said in case these candidates win, proclamation should be postponed until they resolve the complaints. Also, winning candidates who were found not to be registered voters, as well as those reportedly convicted in court, will not be proclaimed yet.

However, Castillano said there are no cases like these in Cebu.

Further, Castillano advised candidates who are planning to file election protests that they have five days after election day to submit their complaints directly to the Municipal Trial Court in Cities. All the candidates also have 30 day from the Monday to submit their Statements of Election Contributions and Expenses.

Meanwhile, the Comelec OPES confirmed that the election officers in the cities and municipalities in Cebu have started to distribute the P2,000 honorarium of teachers who served as Board of Election Tellers.

However, the Comelec said that while they can assure that all BETs will get the P2,000 allowance, they cannot assure that all of them will be given the P500 transportation allowance and the P500 additional honorarium since not all local government units gave the right amount for their share in funding the barangay polls.

Prior the elections, the Comelec released a resolution mandating all LGUs to give their share to the polls by turning over to Comelec not less than P10,000 or not more than 10 percent of their general fund reserved for the Sangguniang Kabataan. This after the Comelec was only allotted P1.1 billion to conduct the barangay elections, P2 billion short of the needed budget.

The additional honoraria and the transportation allowance for the teachers will be taken from the monetary contribution of the LGUs.

However, some LGUs reportedly did not turn over the right amount to Comelec Cebu office with some only giving the minimum amount of P10,000 even if they have a high Internal Revenue Allotment. (FREEMAN)