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THE
National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) called it a day
after tabulating certificates of canvass (COCs) from
Davao
City
on Tuesday.
Chairman
Benjamin Abalos Sr. of the Commission on Elections (Comelec)
said COCs from many provinces and cities have yet to
arrive at the Philippine International Convention Center
(PICC), prompting him to call off the canvassing late
Tuesday morning.
Vote-rich
Davao City,
with a total of 750,109 registered voters, rallied
behind seven bets of the Genuine Opposition (GO), three
from the administration and two independents.
GO’s
Francis Escudero got most of the votes in Davao City
with 268,350.
Abalos
denied that the Comelec) is intentionally slowing down
the canvassing of votes for the senatorial polls to
place more Team Unity (TU) bets in the Magic 12.
“We did
not slow down. Slowing down is different from having
nothing to canvass. There is nothing to canvass so we
have to adjourn,” Abalos said.
He made
the statement to answer accusations from the poll
watchdog Kontra Daya that staged a protest action inside
the canvassing center on Tuesday, holding paper fans
with images of Abalos, former elections commissioner
Virgilio Garcillano and President Arroyo wearing
bulletproof vests and holding assault rifles.
“There
is a huge effort this week to manipulate the results of
the elections to place Gloria’s candidates,” said Fr.
Joe Dizon, one of Kontra Daya’s convenors.
Abalos,
who was obviously irritated by Dizon’s comments, asked:
“Is he [Dizon] a priest?”
“Maybe
it’s time for him to reexamine his thoughts,” he added.
Members
of Dizon’s group, who were able to mix in with the crowd
at the PICC, were mostly from rich families and were not
stopped by members of the police Special Action Force
stationed at the canvassing center.
SENATORIAL POLLS
There
are still 13 COCs covering 5,014,799 voters from
different areas in the country that have yet to be
canvassed by the NBOC.
COCs
from Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Shariff Kabunsuan, Lanao
del Norte, Sultan Kudarat and Surigao del Norte are
already in the custody of the Comelec, but were not yet
canvassed because of pending cases. There are a total of
1,877,662 registered voters in these provinces.
Meanwhile, canvassing of COCs from Maguindanao, Sulu,
Caloocan City, Taguig-Pateros, Davao del Sur, North
Cotabato and South Cotabato have been deferred also
because of election protests. These areas cover a total
of 3,137,137 registered voters.
Abalos
estimates that there are 500 petitions for suspension of
canvassing and proclamation as well as nullification of
proclamation filed before the Comelec.
The
following is the latest data from the NBOC on the
results of the senatorial polls:
The
National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) quick
count is fast becoming a “slow count” as it failed to
release a tabulation on Monday owing to “problems of
connectivity.”
Edward
Go, Namfrel national chairman, said the Comelec’s
citizen’s arm is still putting up telephone lines and it
is having connectivity problems as it is just relying on
whatever feed it gets from Namfrel volunteers in the
field.
Go said
that Namfrel technical personnel are still establishing
the communication lines, especially with the personnel
in some areas in Mindanao, where special elections were
held.
Members
of the media covering Namfrel were promised results of
the latest tabulation on Monday, but no tabulation came
out, and around 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Namfrel’s latest
update was still its May 26 release, with election
returns collected and canvassed from 179,655 precincts
or 79.94 percent of the total 224, 748 precincts in the
country.
Earlier,
Namfrel claimed that it had collected 87 percent of the
election returns (ERs) for senatorial and party-list
candidates and tabulated 80 percent.
Eric
Alvia,Namfrel secretary-general, meanwhile said that he
expects the tally to be completed by Saturday or Sunday.
“Namfrel
will not stop if there are still ERs to be counted,”
Alvia said, belying reports that Namfrel will stop its
tabulation when the count reaches a certain percentage.
Alvia
said there was no written or verbal agreement with the
Comelec on relinquishing or resuming its tabulation,
citing that in the 2004 presidential race, Namfrel
stopped its tabulation after two weeks because there
were no ERs to be canvassed.
Namfrel
missed its initial target of 60 percent for the first
four days of its tabulation owing to database problems
and erroneous entries.
Meanwhile, proadministration lawmakers on Tuesday
appealed to the people to not put any malice on Election
Commissioner Rene Sarmiento’s decision to resign as the
head of Task Force Maguindanao, which is in charge of
investigating the alleged poll fraud in the province.
Lakas
Reps. Antonio Cuenco of
Cebu and Monico
Puentevella of Bacolod City called for the public’s
consideration of Sarmiento’s poor health, and asked them
to respect Sarmiento’s decision instead of making
another controversy out of his health condition.
Puentevella said in a statement that Sarmiento resigned
from heading the Maguindanao investigation because the
pressure and tension of the post was taking a heavy toll
on him. “His resignation as Task Force Maguindanao chief
is purely for health reasons. Let’s respect that. His
quitting would allow him more focus on his health status
and needs.”
Cuenco
said that he is confident that Commissioner Nicodemo
Ferrer is the right man for the job, and that as
Sarmiento’s replacement, he would ensure a speedy and
objective probe of the Maguindanao poll fraud charges.
--C. Jimenez, C. Mocon and
J. P. Cayaban |
