The joint congressional committee suspended the canvassing of votes Thursday night with just five certificates of canvass (CoCs) to be tallied, leaving the question of who officially won in the vice presidential race hanging.
Some 1.4 million votes are expected to be tallied from the five CoCs.
When the joint committee suspended session Thursday night, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay was leading by 644,752 votes over Manuel Roxas II.
In the presidential race, Sen. Benigno Aquino III’s lead of 5.5 million votes over deposed President Joseph Estrada was considered insurmountable.
House Deputy Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said the joint canvassing committee could finish the canvassing on Monday and the proclamation of the winners in the top two elective posts could come a couple of days after.
The latest tally as of 6:56 p.m. involving 273 of the 278 CoCs showed that Binay had 14,084,879 votes; Roxas had 13,440,127. (See table)
Aquino got 14,641,803 votes, while his closest rival, Estrada, obtained 9,125,823.
Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri moved to suspend the canvassing about five minutes before 9 p.m. because the votes in the five still uncanvassed areas “could materially affect” the outcome of the vice presidential race.
The uncanvassed areas are Davao City (550,236 votes), Bacolod (205,282 votes), Mountain Province (74,791), Eastern Samar (more than 100,000) and Lanao del Sur (more than 500,000).
“Therefore, it is material to the outcome of the VP race,” Zubiri told the session.
He said Lanao del Sur just held special elections while Eastern Samar had yet to submit a manually delivered copy of its CoC.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who co-chairs the canvassing proceedings, then banged the gavel suspending the session until 1 p.m. Monday.
Gonzales said the joint session could convene “on Tuesday at the earliest and on Wednesday at the latest.”
He said the prospective winners were expected to be advised to be in the vicinity while Congress was tackling the joint canvassing committee report through nominal voting. Lawmakers are given three minutes to explain their vote on whether to approve the report of the committee.
Roxas lawyer asks to defer tally
Earlier, in a move that also delayed the canvassing, the lawyer of Roxas asked the joint congressional committee to defer the canvassing of CoCs from nine vote-rich provinces.
The provinces are Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna, Cagayan de Oro City, Isabela, Nueva Ecija, North Cotabato, Cebu and Basilan.
But delaying the proclamation of the winner of the presidential election was not on the mind of the camp of Aquino.
At 6:28 p.m., one of Aquino’s lawyers moved that the joint committee proclaim the Liberal Party standard-bearer.
“Senator Aquino is leading by 5.26 million votes and per our assessment, there are only less than two million votes left to be counted,” Joel Cadiz said.
Zubiri told the lawyer to “be patient” since the committee would have to finish the canvassing process, settle contentious issues and come up with a committee report.
“Just for the record, your honor,” Cadiz answered.
No to null votes issue
Speaker Prospero Nograles, co-chair of the joint canvassing committee, earlier also said the proclamation of the next president and vice president would be done on Monday.
No canvassing would be conducted on Friday as Congress convenes for its sine die session.
Nograles said the joint canvassing committee would no longer look into the issue of the null votes that the lawyers of Roxas wanted tackled.
“(The null votes) were machine-rejected and outside our functions to canvass,” Nograles said.
Nograles said a joint session of Congress would have to ratify the findings of the joint canvassing committee.
Lawyers for Estrada expressed concern over the alleged rush to proclaim the winners of the presidential and vice presidential races despite what they called were unanswered issues on the automation process.
Lawyer Ralph Calinisan said the true will of the electorate might result in “a computer-generated and predetermined president and vice president (getting) declared the victors.”
Estrada’s lead counsel George Erwin Garcia also expressed his continuing objection to the joint committee’s canvassing of results that have not been electronically transmitted but delivered in backup compact discs.
Missing election documents derailed the tally, prompting the joint committee temporarily chaired by Zubiri and his House counterpart, Iloilo Rep. Arthur Defensor Sr., to defer the canvassing of votes from four areas.
These are Davao City (no statement of votes), Bacolod City (two CoCs) and Mountain Province and Capiz, including Roxas City (missing CoCs).
Arguing before the joint committee, lawyer Ronald Solis cited the lowering of threshold of votes and allegedly “erroneous transmission of final testing and sealing” of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines as reasons for his motion for the deferment.
The motion was later rejected.
With the continuing objections of Roxas’ lawyer to practically every CoC canvassed Thursday, Zubiri and Defensor vowed to resolve the motion after all the CoCs shall have been canvassed.
Nonetheless, the joint committee proceeded to canvass the votes from the nine provinces, but skipped the other four.
Tale of two CoCs
Earlier in the day, the joint committee set aside the canvassing of votes from Davao City due to missing statement of votes and Bacolod City due to the presence of two CoCs—one dated May 12 and the other dated May 21 and labeled a “reconciled” CoC.
Nograles noted that the results in the CoC and those sent to the Congress server were similar, but the results found in the reconciled CoC were different.
Comelec Executive Director Jose Tolentino explained that the first CoC had contained the results of the final testing and sealing process, which were erroneously transmitted after the elections. Hence, the need for the reconciled CoC, which reflected the correct election results from the precincts.
Solis, however, asked the joint committee whether it was canvassing the real results of the May polls all along.
“I join the motion to defer the CoC from Bacolod City,” said Solis.
“We appreciate the candor of (Executive) Director Tolentino in admitting that the real results for Bacolod City are what appears in the reconciled report. This is what we have been emphasizing to this august body the past several days that there is indeed a need to complete the CoC in areas where there is lowering of threshold (of votes), where there is a need to correct erroneous entries in the sending of the final testing and sealing,” the lawyer said.
He said the joint committee was not canvassing the real results in areas where the threshold was lowered and where there was erroneous transmission of the final testing and sealing.
The proper remedy is to call on the board of canvassers to explain this matter, he said.
“For this reason, this representation, on behalf of Senator Roxas, moves to vacate the canvass for the following CoCs that have been canvassed the past several days,” said Solis.
No cause for panic
Lawyer Romulo Macalintal, counsel for Lakas-Kampi-CMD standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro, cautioned his fellow lawyers representing national candidates against unduly causing panic among the public.
“Let the public know that we should not panic; others might think that it’s the end of the world. We can’t say this would affect what had already been canvassed—you could no longer recall what have been already included. Inclusion is already final insofar as proceedings are concerned,” Macalintal said by way of a manifestation.
He said that the canvassed results were just part of the preliminary report to be submitted by the joint committee to the joint session of Congress, which has the power to proclaim the new president and vice president.
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