Counting for president, VP votes to start soon if Congress convenes early

MANILA, Philippines - It is possible that Congress may start counting the votes for president and vice president earlier than May 31, when it resumes session, House Secretary-General Marilyn Yap told The STAR last night.

“That will depend on the mutual agreement of the Senate and the House of Representatives,” Yap said.

She said under their calendar of sessions, the two chambers are scheduled to reconvene three weeks after yesterday’s elections primarily to canvass the votes for president and vice president.

“But they can convene earlier than May 31 as a national board of canvassers. All they have to do is agree to convene to start the canvass,” she said.

She said a call from President Arroyo for a special session is not needed for Congress to meet as a presidential canvassing board.

Some lawmakers have criticized the decision to resume session three weeks after the elections to canvass the votes, saying congressional leaders probably thought that the balloting was still manual.

They said if the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and other groups doing unofficial counts could tell the nation the presidential and vice presidential results in three to four days, Congress should not take long to convene to do the official count and proclaim the winners.

Convening on May 31 yet would mean prolonging the people’s anxiety and might bring about political instability, they said.

In any case, whether Congress begins the count at the end of the month or earlier, the legislature prepared itself for the tabulation last night when Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile “initialized” the computer that would receive the provincial and city results from the provincial and city boards of canvassers.

Yap said under the law, these canvassing boards are required to send electronic and hard copies of the results to the Senate president for safekeeping.

The Senate president would then bring the results to the joint session of Congress for canvassing, she said.

She said the hard copies are in the form of certificates of canvass (COCs), though these documents are conceivably smaller and easier to fill out than the old ones used in the manual voting system.

“The joint session will decide which copies – electronic or hard – to use in the canvassing. All these are genuine copies under the Automated Elections Law,” she added.

In 2004, when the voting system was manual and the presidential election was hotly contested between President Arroyo and the late popular actor Fernando Poe Jr., Congress started the count three weeks after the election.

The legislature took more than two weeks to finish the count and to proclaim Mrs. Arroyo, whom the opposition claimed cheated their candidate. – With Delon Porcalla