Noynoy, Mar maintain lead in canvass of absentee votes

MANILA, Philippines - As the congressional canvassing proceeded manually yesterday, the Liberal Party (LP) ticket of Senators Benigno Aquino lll and Mar Roxas padded its lead over its opponents in the votes cast by overseas Filipinos.

As of 8 p.m., the Senate-House joint canvassing committee had tallied 131 overseas absentee voting (OAV) certificates of canvass but deferred the tally of 104 local COCs and two certificates from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Though accounting for more than half of all COCs, the certificates that have been canvassed contained votes totaling only about 120,000, less than a third of one percent of the more than 37 million Filipinos believed to have voted on May 10.

Despite this, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Prospero Nograles, co-chairmen of the joint committee, said they are still confident that they could finish the canvass and proclaim the winners by June 15.

The bulk of the votes yet to be counted are reflected in the provincial and city canvass documents that the canvassing committee decided to set aside temporarily because losing congressional candidates questioned their authenticity.

The canvassing committee took two days to tabulate the votes of overseas Filipinos.

The results showed that Aquino received 61,742 votes, followed by Gilberto Teodoro Jr., 16,574; former President Estrada, 13,982; Sen. Manuel Villar, 11,421; Bro. Eddie Villanueva, 10,683; Sen. Richard Gordon, 5,052; Sen. Jamby Madrigal, 207; JC de los Reyes, 203; Nicanor Perlas, 190; and Vetellano Acosta, 74.

A total of 120,128 votes were counted for presidential candidates.

In the vice presidential race, Roxas was credited with 63,582 votes, followed by Makati Major Jejomar Binay, 26,385; Sen. Loren Legarda, 10,985; Bayani Fernando, 8,586; Perfecto Yasay Jr., 6,718; Edu Manzano, 2,416; Jay Sonza, 611; and Dominador Chipeco, 211.

The canvassing committee counted a total of 119,494 votes for vice presidential candidates.

Binay’s camp said it expected the overseas voting results, but was confident the Makati mayor would overtake Roxas once the joint committee starts canvassing the provincial and city COCs.

Their tabulation of these COCs was set aside temporarily because they are among 106 electronically transmitted COCs whose authenticity losing congressional candidates have questioned before the joint committee and in the hearings of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reform chaired by Makati City Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr.

Before the additional OAV certificates were tallied, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez called attention to a section in the canvassing rules requiring the committee to canvass the COCs in the order that the office of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile received them.

Golez said the next COC that the committee should canvass after those from Laos, Guam, Brunei, Papua New Guinea, and Thailand should be the certificate coming from La Union, which was electronically transmitted to the congressional canvass server at the House of Representatives along with other local COCs.

“We cannot defer the electronically transmitted COCs just because there are questions as to their authenticity. We have to presume regularity on the part of the Commission on Elections and its boards of canvassers. It is the burden of those challenging the authenticity of the COCs to present proof,” he said.

Sen. Joker Arroyo supported Golez’s proposal.

Arroyo said the joint committee should not defer the canvassing of the electronically transmitted COCs because the automation law requires Congress to proclaim the winners of the basis of these certificates.

“That’s the law, we cannot reverse that,” he said.

He warned his colleagues that they might be accused of trending if they exclude some COCs in the canvass.

Of the 278 COCs delivered to Enrile’s office, 104 were electronically transmitted by the provincial and city canvassing boards to the House server and two by the canvassing boards in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The local certificates contain the bulk of the more than 37 million votes cast on May 10.

However, Enrile and Nograles insisted that the electronically transmitted votes be deferred until after technical issues relating to the automated elections are resolved even though these have been extensively discussed on Wednesday and Thursday.

Nograles told reporters later that these issues would be discussed again possibly on Tuesday.

When asked how long he and Enrile would permit further debates on these issues, Nograles said, “It’s as long as we would allow it. But the discussions should not delay the canvassing.”

Suggestions from Nograles and Golez made the pace of yesterday’s canvassing quicker.

Nograles proposed that two COCs be opened at the same time for examination by the committee and lawyers of candidates, and for tabulation.

Golez, on the other hand, suggested that instead of the joint committee, personnel of the Commission on Elections or the Senate and the House be asked to open the ballot boxes and bring the sealed envelopes containing the COCs to the canvassing panel.

The procedure would obviate the opening of the boxes before the committee and the reading of the serial numbers of its padlocks and seals, he added.

The committee would then just unseal the COCs, have the candidates’ lawyers examine the certificates and then tabulate them, Golez said.

The joint canvassing committee also heard the testimony of Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) chair Tita de Villa on the results of their manual audit of the automated election results in five precincts randomly selected in every congressional district.

De Villa said the automated system was largely reliable and accurate, and there were only insignificant discrepancies between the automated results and the manually counted votes.

Meanwhile, the LP and Estrada’s camp are both pushing for the tabulation of the more than 76,000 precinct-level election returns (ERs).

The LP believes that if the votes reflected in the ERs were tabulated, Roxas would win over Binay by a little over 100,000 votes.

Binay leads Roxas in the unofficial count by about 800,000 votes.

In the presidential race, Aquino is ahead of Estrada in the unofficial tally by 5.1 million votes.  

Palace expresses relief

Malacañang is relieved that Congress has started canvassing the votes for president and vice- president.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Charito Planas said the views and complaints aired during the canvassing were “healthy” and could be used as lessons for the next elections.

“Just like everybody else, the Palace wants these settled as it should be settled so that the (new) president and vice president can take their oath on June 30,” she said.

“We would like the proclamation to be done with so that the new president can take over managing the country.”

Planas said Malacañang is optimistic that there would be no more hitches during the canvassing.

“The canvassing will proceed smoothly,” she said.

Binay: I will take lead in VP race

Makati Mayor Binay believes he would take the lead in the vice-presidential race after the canvass of overseas absentee votes is completed.

JV Bautista, one of Binay’s legal advisers, said the number of overseas voters has been placed at 589,830 with a turnout of only 23 percent.

“Mar Roxas (LP vice- presidential candidate) will lead today until the completion of the canvass for the overseas absentee votes,” he said.

“But after this, Jojo Binay will take the lead and will sustain it until proclamation day.”

Bautista said Binay would have already taken the lead away from Roxas if La Union, one of the first to send election results to Congress, had been included in the first 10 COCs that were opened.

“If the canvass followed the original procedure of first in/first out and included La Union in the canvass, Binay would be shown to lead by some 60,000 votes,” he said.

The lawyer said they expect the Roxas camp to eventually question the tally of votes for vice-president, not for president. — With Paolo Romero, Delon Porcalla, Jose Rodel Clapano