Can the winning presidential candidate in the May 9 elections be proclaimed ahead of the winning vice presidential candidate?
The leaders of the canvassing panels of the House of Representatives
and the Senate are divided on the matter, but the decision ultimately
rests with the members of Congress.
The question arose on Tuesday when Congress convened as the national
board of canvassers (NBOC) to count the votes for the country’s top
elective posts amid the landslide win of Rodrigo Duterte in the
presidential race and the hairline lead of Leni Robredo over Bongbong
Marcos in the vice presidential contest based on an unofficial quick
count.
Marcos has raised suspicion about the quick count by the Parish
Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the citizens’ arm of
the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, head of the House canvassing
panel, said he could not see how separate proclamations could be done.
He noted that the certificates of canvass (COCs) contained the votes
for both President and Vice President so that questioning the result for
one position would mean questioning that for the other.
But Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, head of the Senate canvassing panel,
said separate proclamations could be done “theoretically,” although it
did not happen before for the positions of President and Vice President.
But Pimentel told reporters that he saw no legal impediment to the idea of proclaiming the President earlier.
Sen. Vicente Sotto III, a member of the Senate canvassing panel, also
believed the President could be proclaimed ahead of the Vice President.
Vacuum
“What we don’t want is for there to be a vacuum. We abhor vacuums,” Sotto said in an ambush interview.
He said there could be separate proclamations because the Senate
leadership made it clear that under the canvassing rules, the board
could tackle separately the issues or objections concerning the votes
for President and the votes for Vice President in the COCs.
This means that there would be no delays with regard to the positions where the COCs have not been questioned.
Sotto initially moved during the joint Congress session to include in
the canvassing rules the separate handling of the issues concerning the
votes for President and Vice President.
But Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said Sotto’s proposal
was already included in the inherent powers of the NBOC. Sotto withdrew
his motion.
But Gonzales said the COC for one province or city contained the
votes for President, Vice President and even the senators. If the
execution of a COC for a province is OK, then it is OK for all the
positions, he added.
“You can’t be blind about the observations for the votes for
President and then have your eyes open for the observations for votes
for Vice President,” he told reporters.
Panels formed
The Senate and the House formed the canvassing committee during a
joint session on Tuesday and approved the rules that would govern the
proclamation of the country’s next leaders.
For the Senate, the panel will be headed by Pimentel. Its members are
Senators Sonny Angara, Ralph Recto, Teofisto Guingona III, Sergio
Osmeña III, Juan Ponce Enrile and Sotto.
The alternate members are Senators Cynthia Villar and JV Ejercito.
For the House, the panel will be headed by Gonzales and its members
are Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo, Cagayan de
Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro, and 1BAP Rep.
Silvestre Bello.
The alternates are Pampanga Rep. Oscar Rodriguez, Akbayan Rep. Ibarra
Gutierrez, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya and San Juan Rep. Ronaldo
Zamora.
Marcos challenge
Marcos had indicated that there were COCs from several provinces that
his camp intended to challenge for supposedly questionable results.
The areas included the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where he
said there were reports that people were not allowed to vote and that
ballots were preshaded.
The ballot boxes containing the COCs were brought to the House from
the Senate early on Tuesday morning. They had been housed in the Senate
since May 9.
Marcos has questioned the alteration of the script in the
transparency server used by the PPCRV, contending that poll officials
did not present proof that the change only resulted in a cosmetic and
not substantial change.
Last week, Marcos sent a formal letter to the Comelec demanding that
his camp be allowed to conduct a systems audit to determine the extent
of the effect of the supposedly unsanctioned change in the data packet
for a transparency server on the night of Election Day.
He has been suggesting that because of the change in the script in
the data packet, supposed irregularities in the count of votes in the
vice presidential race occurred.
Count unaffected
Earlier, Comelec and its technology partner Smartmatic had explained
that the minor change in the script only involved substituting “?” that
appeared in the names of certain candidates with “ñ” and that this did
not affect the counting of the votes.
The Marcos camp claims that the change in the script may have allowed Robredo to overtake him in the PPCRV count.
The senator was trailing Robredo by more than 200,000 votes when the
PPCRV ended its quick count last week, with 96.17 percent of election
returns counted.
Gonzales said it would be up to the canvassing committee, made up of
designated members of both houses of Congress, to decide what action to
take on any observations or protests that the camp of Marcos may raise.
But he also said the NBOC was tasked with tabulating the votes, not to investigate alleged fraud.
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