Comelec cancels ‘Magic 12’ proclamation

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc sitting as the national board of canvassers (NBOC) on Wednesday announced the cancellation of the proclamation of the winning senatorial candidates earlier scheduled for Wednesday night.

“We are officially canceling the proclamation of the senators tonight at 7 p.m. No agreement has been made as to when the proclamation will be. Most probably tomorrow (Thursday),” Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said at a press conference.

He said the NBOC had yet to decide whether to have a “partial or total” proclamation tonight.

The Comelec chairman earlier announced that the NBOC had aimed to proclaim at least 10 winning senators on Wednesday.

Brillantes would not give any reason why the NBOC decided not to push through with the proclamation “because we are still analyzing what is happening in the field up to now.”

The schedule of the proclamation, he said, would depend “on the arrival of the various COCs (certificates of canvass) from the provinces and cities.”

“We will continue the same process now and we will try to finish as many as we can. We are now coming up with new resolutions to facilitate the sending of the COCs to the NBOC. There are certain issues being raised in the municipality and provincial levels,” he said.

Brillantes said that the national board could have actually proclaimed the first two winning candidates but they decided to wait for a more “substantial” number of canvassed votes.

“We wanted to (proclaim) one or two but we decided that if we proclaim two then that would be piecemeal. We decided we would have a good number before we proclaim, at least more than one half (of the winning circle),” he said.

Grace Poe held on to her lead over her rivals in the senatorial race, while former Sen. Richard Gordon entered the Magic 12 for the first time, based on the partial, official tally released Wednesday night by the Comelec.

21 certificates

The partial, official returns were tabulated from 29 COCs out of 301 COCs to be tallied by the Comelec sitting as the NBOC, and representing 2,978,686 million voters out of 52,695,140 registered voters.

As of 7:30 p.m., Poe remained on top with 1,776,086 votes, followed by Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero with 1,636,290 votes and 1,578,476 votes, respectively.

In the fourth to 9th places were Alan Peter Cayetano (1,544,084 votes), Nancy Binay (daughter of Vice President Jejomar Binay, with 1,537,108 votes), Edgardo “Sonny” Angara (1,472,222 votes), Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV (1,380,083 votes), Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III (1,378,815) and JV Ejercito (1,305,112).

Antonio Trillanes IV was in 10th with 1,253,389 votes and Cynthia Villar was in 11th place with 1,251,965 votes. Gordon, who was outside the Magic 12 in initial official tallies, rose to 12th with 1,239,777 votes.

Miguel Zubiri climbed to 13th place with 1,183,212 votes. Sen. Gringo Honasan, former 12th placer, fell to 14th with 1,180,925 votes.

Others within striking distance of the Magic 12 were Ramon Magsaysay Jr. with 1,076,559 votes at No. 15, and Juan “Jack” Ponce Enrile Jr. with 1,051,117 votes at No. 16.

Brillantes said the ladderized system of the transmission of COCs as well as the close electoral contests in the local elections had affected “the movement of the COCs.”

By ladderized system, Brillantes meant that from the precinct level, the national votes are canvassed in the municipal or city level, then transmitted to the provincial before they are finally sent to the NBOC for the final tally.

“We are coming up with resolutions that will solve these incidents,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Comelec en banc issued Resolution No. 9700, which allowed the lowering of the 100-percent threshold so that winners could be proclaimed, for as long as the votes that were not transmitted would not affect the results of the elections.

As of press time, the NBOC had only canvassed 21 COCs out of 304. Only the votes canvassed by the NBOC are considered official votes of the senatorial candidates.

Brillantes said there was not much difference between the schedule of proclamation of winning candidates in the May 2010 elections and this year’s midterm elections.

He recalled that in 2010, the first nine senators were proclaimed five days after Election Day and the next three were proclaimed three days later.

“Now, at most, we should be able to make some partial proclamation by tomorrow (Thursday) and probably finish it by Friday or at most Saturday. So that would be five days (since Election Day), we will finish the 12,” he said.