ACTOR Robin Padilla and broadcaster Raffy Tulfo topped the first round of canvassing of votes for senators being conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) Forum Tent in Pasay City.
After eight Certificates of Canvass (COCs) canvassed as of late Tuesday night, Padilla got the highest number of votes with 612,684, while Tulfo got 521,381 votes.
Completing the upper half of the Magic 12 are House Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda (492,504), former public works Secretary Mark Villar (427,025), Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian (424,797), and Sorsogon Gov. Francis Escudero (378,428).
Ranked 7th to 10th place are Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (369,589), Sen. Joel Villanueva (358,280), and half-brothers and former senators Jinggoy Estrada (336,498) and JV Ejercito (332,936).
Occupying the final two spots of the winners’ circle are Senate majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri (319,858), and former vice president Jojo Binay (284,124).
Just outside the Top 12 slots are former presidential spokesman Harry Roque (280,444), former defense chief Gibo Teodoro (264,539), and former Rep. Teddy Baguilat (257,129).
The votes are from the COCs of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mt Province, Baguio City, and Malabon City.
In the eight COCs, there are a total of 1,117,445 voters that actually voted out of the 1,336,015 registered voters.
On Wednesday, the NBOC canvassed another 69 COCs, including those from overseas voting.
As of press time, the Comelec has yet to release an updated number of votes for each senatorial bet.
PPCRV TALLY
In the partial and unofficial tally of the poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), actor Padilla continued to be the pacesetter with 26.4 million votes, Legarda with 23.9 million, Tulfo with 23.1 million, Gatchalian with 20.3 million, Escudero with 20.04 million, Villar with 19.2 million, Cayetano with 19.07 million, Zubiri with 18.5 million, Villanueva with 18.2 million, Ejercito with 15.6 million, Sen. Risa Hontiveros with 15.2 million and Estrada with 14.9 million.
PROCLAMATION
Elections Commissioner George Garcia said the NBOC is not looking at making a partial proclamation of the winning senators in the May 2022 polls.
“In the past, there have been instances that there are partial proclamations. But recently, in the last two elections, there have been complete proclamation. For these elections, hopefully, we will also have complete proclamation. It’s better to make complete proclamation, with no one left behind,” Garcia said.
On the other hand, a full proclamation is not possible for party-list organizations as the computation for seat allocation requires the total votes cast for the party-list polls, according to Elections spokesman John Rex Laudiangco.
“The party-list is dependent on the total number of party-list votes. We will still have to make the computation. It’s a matter of completing the party-list votes before we can compute for the 63 allocated seats for party-lists,” said Laudiangco in a press briefing.
Add to this, Garcia said, is the presence of party-lists with two sets of nominees.
“What if there is internal squabble in the party or someone is facing disqualification? How do you proclaim a party-list with a pending disqualification? Before, the Comelec rule is we can proclaim the party-lists but the Certificate of Proclamation will not be issued to the nominees,” added Garcia.
On Tuesday, Elections Commissioner Marlon Casquejo said it is possible to proclaim the winning candidates for senators and party-lists within the week.
Meanwhile, the Comelec announced that 835 ity/Municipal Board of Canvassers have already proclaimed the winning mayors, vice mayors, and councilors in local government units.
“That’s around 54.43 percent of the total 46 cities, and 1,488 municipalities we are expecting to make their proclamation,” said Laudiangco.
Garcia said the Comelec has already authorized the lowering of threshold of the canvassing system by the local Boards of Canvassers in a bid to hasten the canvassing proceedings and proclamation of winners.
This means that proclamation of local winners may already be done despite the ERs or COCs not being transmitted at 100 percent.
“We lowered the threshold to allow proclamation after they were able to generate Certificates of Proclamation and Canvass,” said Garcia.
According to Laudiangco, all lowered thresholds had the approval of the Comelec as part of its security measures.
“If the system detects that it can still affect the results for the other positions, they cannot lower the thresholds. There are inherent safeguards in the system,” said Laudiangco.
But despite the lowering of the threshold, Garcia assured that the transmitted results that will come after the proclamation will still be counted and canvassed.
“No votes will be left unaccounted for. No voters will be disenfranchised. We guarantee that,” said Garcia.
NBOC
Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Tuesday night named 10 senators, three of them alternates, as NBOC members who will work with their counterparts from the House of Representatives for the canvassing of votes for president and vice president.
The members of the NBOC include Senators Zubiri, Nancy Binay, Imee Marcos, Francis Tolentino, Pia Cayetano, Grace Poe, and Franklin Drilon, while the alternates are Senators Ralph Recto, Edgardo Angara, and Cynthia Villar.
Sotto said the NBOC will conduct the canvassing as swiftly as possible, even as he expressed hope that there be lesser issues to be resolved with regards the COCs like what happened in the 2004 elections when Gloria Arroyo was proclaimed winner over her close rival the late Fernando Poe Jr.
He noted that this year’s elections was automated, just like in the 2016 elections, which was finished in two to three days’ time.
“It took us a lot of time because the proclamation [during the 2004 elections] was June 6, 2004. I still remember because I walked out from the canvassing because our objections were just ‘noted,’ they did not accept them. It was marred by objections that’s why it took a lot of time to finish. But this time, it may be like the 2016 elections which was automated, in two to three days we’re done,” Sotto said.
He said the NBOC aims to finish the canvassing of votes and proclaim the winners at the soonest possible time so the Senate can still have its regular sessions and pass important measures on 2nd reading on May 26 and 27, and on 3rd and final reading the following week as requested by Zubiri.
Sotto said the Senate is expecting to receive 173 ballot boxes containing the COCs, including the overseas absentee voting.
As of yesterday morning, the Senate has received three ballot boxes coming from Malabon, Vietnam, and Cambodia which represent 1.16 percent of the total.
The COCs and election returns are brought to the Senate before they are delivered to the House of Representatives in Quezon City where the canvassing will take place.
Under the 1987 Constitution, Congress, in a joint public session, shall canvass votes for president and vice president and proclaim the winning candidates.
MATCH RATES
The PPCRV said it will release the match rates between the physical and digital ERs today.
“Perhaps starting (Thursday), we will release the percentage match like what we did in 2019,” PPCRV national chairperson Myla Villanueva said.
“Noong 2019 nung ginawa natin itong validation, 99.995 percent ang match rate. Ganun din po ang gagawin natin. I-explain natin na every time may pumapasok na election returns ano ang nakikitang match rate (In 2019 when we did the validation, there was a 99.995 percent match rate. We will also do the same this year. We will explain what we see every time an election return comes in),” she said.
The PPCRV chair said that so far, there is “no discrepancy reported.”
The poll watchdog has so far received 18,756 or 17.40 percent of physical election returns, which will be used to verify the results of the elections.
As of 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday, the PPCRV said it has received 9,775 and 8,981 poll results from Luzon and Metro Manila, respectively.
There are about 106,000 election returns nationwide.
Villanueva said they expect poll results from Visayas and Mindanao to also arrive soon.
The encoding is being done at the PPCRV Command Center at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila.
LOCAL, OVERSEAS ABSENTEE VOTING
At the local absentee voting (LAV), acting Elections spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said 46 out of the 188 election returns (ERs), or 25 percent, have already been canvassed.
Earlier, the poll body noted how the May 2022 polls saw the highest voter turnout for the LAV at 88 percent after 74,852 voters voted out of the 84,358 that enlisted for the LAV.
On the other hand, Laudiangco said that the overseas voting has also reached its highest voter turnout at nearly 35 percent.
“To highlight, we also got the highest voter turnout in overseas voting at 34.88 percent,” said Laudiangco.
In the previous overseas voting, the voter turnout during presidential elections have been traditionally higher, with 2004 having 233,137 voters (65%), 2010 with 153,323 voters (26%), and 2016 with 430,695 voters (32%).
Comparatively, midterm polls have had lower voter turnouts without 2007 having 81,732 voters (16%), 2013 having 118,823 voters (16%), and 2019 with 336,447 voters (18%). — With Ashzel Hachero and Raymond Africa
