Congress to formalise Aquino election on June 8

Manila: The clear leader in the presidential race, Senator Benigno ‘Noynoy' Aquino III, is to be proclaimed the winner of the May 10 elections on June 8 after an 18-man joint Congressional panel agreed to finish by today the official counting of votes in the May 10 polls, a senior official said.

Aquino has been instructed to return to Congress on Tuesday, following a six-day retreat that would end on Sunday, said Senate majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri. Members of the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) had agreed to fast-track their work and open all certificates of canvass by today, Zubiri said.

The committee would subsequently have to tally all the votes and prepare a report for approval by a joint session of Congress on Monday, he added.

"All of these things must be done prior to the proclamation of the winning presidential and vice-presidential candidates," said Zubiri, who changed his earlier prediction that the proclamation of Aquino's win would be made on Monday. After 200 certificates of canvass were tallied, Aquino had four million votes over his closest rival, former president Joseph Estrada. But Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, Estrada's running mate, was 200,000 votes ahead of Senator Mar Roxas, Aquino's running mate.

Overseas votes

Of the 71 certificates of canvass still to be tallied by the joint congressional panel, 41 were to make known the mandate of overseas Filipinos, with the rest reflecting voting in local precincts.

The joint congressional committee is not expected to face a problem with proclaiming Aquino the winner even if Estrada refused to concede defeat, political analyst Prospero de Vera said.

But the case of Roxas is different. His lawyer Roland Solis vowed to contest the decision of the joint Congressional committee not to factor in some 2.6 million nullified votes.

"The number of nullified votes already represents a disenfranchisement of about five per cent of the country's entire voting population," complained Solis. Meanwhile, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday scheduled special polls in seven municipalities in three provinces (Lanao del Sur, Saranggani, and Basilan) in the southern Philippines, and in two municipalities in one province (Western Samar) in central Philippines.

Voters in these areas failed to vote on May 10 because of violence and logistical problems in the country's first automated polls, Comelec said, reassuring that an estimated 80,200 voters in these areas were not going to swing the national verdict.