Jinggoy: Let's unite, rally behind President Noynoy

Senate President Pro-Tempore Jinggoy Estrada yesterday called on the entire nation to rally behind the next president in a bid to unite the country.

Estrada called on the people to unite behind and support presidential frontrunner Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III whom he called “President Noynoy Aquino.”

“The entire Filipino nation must rally behind President Noynoy Aquino,” Estrada said in an interview with GMA-7 news program “24 Oras.”

But when he was contacted by The STAR later last night, Estrada qualified his answer.

“The entire Filipino nation must rally behind the next president, whoever he or she may be, in order not to divide the nation,” he said.

Estrada stressed there should be a stop to the divisiveness in the country brought about by the administration of President Arroyo.

When asked if his call for support extends to Aquino, Sen. Estrada replied, “Then the people should rally behind him.”

When reminded that his father, the former president has not yet conceded to Aquino, Sen. Estrada said that is because the canvassing is not yet finished.

Lawmakers, however, are in a rush to finish the canvassing and proclaim the winning candidates by next week.

Speaker Prospero Nograles said the winning presidential and vice presidential candidates may be proclaimed on Monday.

“If there are no interruptions, we can finish the canvass today. But for sure, we can complete it tomorrow so that we can proclaim the winners on Monday,” he said.

This means that Congress is completing the tally and proclamation eight days earlier than its self-imposed deadline on June 15, Nograles declared.

But yesterday’s congressional canvass moved at a snail’s pace, slowed down again by issues related to the automation of the May 10 elections.

As of 6:30 p.m. or five hours into its session, the joint Senate-House canvassing committee had tallied only five certificates of canvass (COCs), a far cry from its seven-COC-per-hour average on Tuesday.

Still, the committee is on track to finish the canvass today and proclaim the winners on Monday, beating the deadline for Congress to declare the winners in the presidential and vice presidential race on June 30.

At the start of the proceedings, Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen brought up a memorandum issued on May 9, or the eve of the elections, by Commission on Elections (Comelec) executive director Jose Tolentino allotting an extra 20 blank compact flash (CF) memory cards and two card burners for every province just in case the CF cards previously deployed malfunctioned.

Dilangalen hinted that provincial election officers to whom they were given might have manipulated the extra cards.

This might be a case of “garbage in, garbage out,” he said.

Nograles tried to take up the point of Dilangalen by asking Tolentino why he sent the CF cards to Comelec provincial officers and allowed them to configure the cards.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez attempted to put things in proper perspective by informing his colleagues that based on the May 9 memorandum, although Tolentino sent 10 extra memory cards to his provincial officers, it was the provincial director of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) that was authorized to configure them if needed.

Golez, of the Liberal Party (LP), said Nograles was “crafting an inaccurate question based on inaccurate information from the gentleman of Maguindanao.”

“This matter has been discussed in the hearings of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reform and in its visit to Cabuyao (Laguna), but unfortunately, the gentleman from Maguindanao was not there,” he said.

Dilangalen resented his colleague’s remarks, and in a raised voice accused him of making “sipsip” or bootlicking, prompting the joint canvassing committee’s presiding officers to suspend the session.

When session resumed, the committee tackled the certificate of canvass (COC) from Ilocos Sur that was manually delivered to the Senate and which was earlier set aside because its electronic version was not received by the congressional canvass server.

On orders from the canvassing committee, the heads of the canvassing boards in provinces where COCs were not electronically received by the Congress server appeared before the panel to explain if they transmitted the certificates, and if they did, why they were not received.

Their testimonies contributed to the snail’s pace of last night’s canvassing.

Aquino kept his lead over Estrada in last night’s congressional tally as of 7 p.m.

Aquino received 9,931,188 votes against Estrada’s 6,271,431, or a 3.7 million margin. They were followed by Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. with 3,601,085 and Gilberto Teodoro Jr. with 2,601,806 votes.

Estrada’s running mate, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, maintained his lead over Aquino’s teammate Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II.

Binay had 9,509,446 while Roxas garnered 9,153,971 votes. They were followed by Sen. Loren Legarda with 2,794,664 and Bayani Fernando at 622,744.

The canvassing committee had tabulated a total of 22,918,653 votes for vice president and 23, 715,624 presidential votes.

It added only 1.2 million votes to Tuesday night’s tabulation of 22.5 million tally level.

Explanations

Ilocos Sur provincial election officer Marino Salas testified that based on their records, their COC was electronically transmitted to the Congress server.

He said if it was not received, the joint committee could use the compact disc (CD) containing the results that was included in the ballot box he delivered to the Senate.

Instead of abbreviating the proceedings by agreeing to Salas’ suggestion, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon proposed that the committee could use the COC that the Ilocos Sur canvassing board sent electronically to the Comelec central office, which was not immediately available.

Camarines Norte Rep. Liwayway Vinzons Chato contributed to the extended debate by going back to the failed electronic transmission of the COC to the Congress server.

“What is the reason for the failure? Is it true that if the results are rigged, there is failure to transmit?” she asked.

At this point, an exasperated Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile reminded his colleagues that “this is a canvassing board.”

“I suggest that we proceed with the canvassing,” he told them.

House Majority Leader Arthur Defensor observed that “we are beginning to lose track of the mandate of this committee.”

The committee later decided to disregard Biazon’s proposal and heeded Salas’ suggestion that the CD containing the Ilocos Sur election results be opened.

Resorting to the CD was first proposed by lawyer Romulo Macalintal on Tuesday to obviate the need for the canvassing committee to require the members of the provincial canvassing boards to appear before it.

However, the canvassing panel ignored the proposal of Macalintal, who is representing Teodoro in the canvassing, and ordered canvassers in provinces where COCs were not electronically received to fly to Manila right away.

Just the same, the canvassing panel relied on the CDs after hearing the provincial canvassers.

Former assemblyman Homobono Adaza, representing Sen. Jamby Madrigal in the canvassing, joined last night’s fray by questioning the constitutionality of the canvass proceedings.

Adaza argued that the canvassing of votes be done by the Senate and the House in a joint public session.

Enrile dismissed Adaza’s statements by saying the Constitution allows Congress to promulgate its canvassing rules, including the formation of a joint committee that would actually do the tally.

It was relatively easy last Tuesday when the tally had already reached the 22.5-million-vote level. More than 37 million, out of 51 million registered Filipino voters, are believed to have voted on May 10.

The 22.5 million votes came from 51 provinces and cities, and from overseas and local absentee voters.

The tabulation picked up speed on Tuesday, with the joint Senate-House canvassing committee tallying about 21.7 million votes in seven hours.

The avalanche of votes from vote-rich provinces enabled Aquino to pull away from Estrada.

The tally level on Monday night, when Estrada led Aquino, was only about 800,000 votes.

The null votes

As of yesterday, votes from only 30 provinces and cities remained to be tabulated.

Nograles said the canvassing committee could not include some 1.3 million “null” or void votes that were recorded on Tuesday.

This is because the panel has no way of determining to whom it would credit the votes, he said.

“These were machine-dictated. The (precinct count optical scan) machine just didn’t read the votes for various reasons known only to the machine and how they were programmed to read the ballots,” he explained.

Null votes represented ballots that the PCOS machines did not read for any candidate.

So far, there were 500,000 void votes for presidential candidates and 800,000 for vice presidential candidates.

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