THE Commission on Elections (Comelec), sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), is set to proclaim tomorrow the 12 senators who won the senatorial contest in the May 9 elections.
On the other hand, top-raked party list organizations will be proclaimed on Thursday.
In a press conference, acting Elections Spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said the proclamation will be held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) Forum Tent in Pasay City at 4 p.m.
He, however, pointed out that the winners will be proclaimed unranked since not all votes have been canvassed.
“There will be no standing or ranking. We will proclaim the 12 candidates with the highest number of votes. In the meantime, there will be no ranking because we still have to complete everything,” said Laudiangco.
The NBOC has yet to canvass the Certificate of Canvass (COC) from Lanao del Sur, where a failure of elections was declared in 47 clustered precincts in 14 barangays in Butig, Bindayan, and Tubaran. Special elections will be held in these areas, which have a voting population of 8,295.
The NBOC yesterday canvassed the COCs from Hong Kong, Mexico, Prague, Abuja, Tehran, Nairobi, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Myanmar, Copenhagen, Oslo, the Vatican, and 63 barangays from North Cotabato.
The Hong Kong COC was canvassed sans the election return from Shanghai, where elections have yet to be conducted, after the Comelec en Banc authorized the generation of the Canvass Report.
Based on the latest National Tally Sheet released by the NBOC on late Monday, the top 12 senatorial bets continued to fortify their positions.
Staying at number one is actor Robin Padilla with 26,491,176 votes, followed by Antique Rep. Loren Legarda with 24,180,823 votes, and broadcaster Raffy Tulfo with 23,342,613 votes.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian (20,545,327), Sorsogon Gov. Chiz Escudero (20,239,033), and former public works secretary Mark Villar (19,400,167) round out the top six places.
Occupying the 7th to 9th spots are Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (19,260,370), and Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri (18,661,089) and Joel Villanueva (18,438,664).
Completing the Magic 12 are former senator JV Ejercito (15,801,915), Sen. Risa Hontiveros (15,384,530), and former senator Jinggoy Estrada (15,069,329).
In the 13th to 15th slots are former vice president Jejomar Binay (13,243,613), former Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista (13,046,931), and former defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro (12,751,235).
Laudiangco said winning senators will be allowed to be accompanied by five individuals, including their documentation teams.
PARTY-LISTS
Laudiangco said the partial proclamation of winning party-list organizations has been set on Thursday, also at 4 p.m.
He reiterated that “not all 63 seats will be proclaimed.” “It will only be limited to those that have or are sure to have garnered the guaranteed seats,” he said.
The six party-list organizations currently inside the winner’s circle in the electoral race are ACT-CIS with 2,102,828 votes or 5.79 percent of the total votes, 1 Rider Party-list (999,608), Tingog (884,595), 4PS (834,345), Ako Bicol (815,849), and Sagip (774,075).
So far, there are already 36,258,714 votes cast for the party-list system.
Under the law, the party-lists that have received at least two percent of the total votes cast for the party-list system shall be entitled to one seat each.
Laudiangco said each of the winning party-list group can be represented by up to two individuals during the proclamation rites.
“The candidates and their companions will have to present their vaccination cards. We are already coordinating with them so they can submit them ahead,” said Laudiangco.
He also asked all attendees to maintain the formality of the event from beginning until the end.
“We have procedures. We have rules. We have guides, who will assist them. This will be a formal ceremony, and we hope we can maintain the formality of the occasion,” said Laudiangco.
SENATE
The Senate has received a total of 128 of the 173 ballots containing COCs and Election Returns (ERs) for the presidential and vice-presidential race as of Monday morning.
The Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau said the ballots represent 73.99 percent of the total COCs it is waiting to receive.
The latest to be transmitted were COCs from the provinces of Quezon, Isabela, Mountain Province, Davao del Norte, General Santos City, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato, and from Lapu-lapu City in Cebu.
The Senate has also received Overseas Absentee Voting COCs from India, Lebanon and Italy.
Both houses of Congress are expected to convene in a joint session on May 24 to canvass the votes for the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections.
PPCRV
Meanwhile, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said that as of 10:30 a.m. yesterday, its command center at the University of Sto. Tomas has received 66,574 ERs out of the 107,785 total ERs, or 61.77 percent of the total ERs.
Most of the ERS received came from the greater Luzon area, numbering 40,292 while 10, 033 came from the National Capital Region. On the other hand, 11,614 ERs came from the Visayas and 4,635 from Mindanao.
The poll watchdog said it has yet to receive any ERs from the overseas absentee voting.
Likewise, PPCRV national chairperson Myla Villanueva said the 1.61 percent mismatch in printed ERs and data transmitted to the Comelec transparency server could be due to typographical errors made by volunteer encoders.
The 1.61 percent mismatch was recorded on Saturday in 240 ERs and the transparency server.
Villanueva said the mismatch does not mean that it the mismatch involves the whole ballot.
“ It doesn’t mean that it is the whole ballot that’s not matching. Sometimes you know a volunteer is tired and may have had a typo because we match this two times over,” Villanueva told ABS-CBN News Channel on Monday.
“We (are looking) at the mismatches and in the next few days it can be explained why there was a mismatch. So, so far so good,” she added.
PPCRV IT Director William Yu told reporters the mismatch is not unusual and is expected as more ERs are being encoded.
“Clearly, there will be some more mismatch incidents but this problem is not unusual. Mismatch could be brought about by tired eyes,” he said.
In the 2019 midterm elections, he said three mismatches were seen out of the 67 percent encoded precincts.
In the same interview, Villanueva dispelled speculations on the fast transmission of election results in the quick count made by the PPCRV.
Villanueva said the transmission was much faster during the 2019 mid-term elections, where no opposition senatorial candidate won a seat in the Senate.
She said the fast transmission at the time was not given too much media mileage because the focus at the time was the seven-hour glitch that delayed the partial quick count done by the poll watchdog.
“To put it in perspective, maybe in 2019 the big story was the seven-hour glitch. But in reality, data was coming in, we just weren’t seeing it in our servers while the other servers were seeing it,” Villanueva explained, adding: “The rate of the transmissions of 2019 were actually faster than 2022.” — With Raymond Africa and Ashzel Hachero
