Close margins to watch in Day 4 of canvassing: Will Gwen keep her lead?

It’s a restless wait for some Cebu candidates and their supporters whose election results hang in the balance with narrow margins.

Who won the vice mayor’s race in Cebu City?

Will Gov. Gwen Garcia hang on and win the 3rd district congressional seat over Geraldine Yapha?

When will a new Cebu governor be proclaimed?

Canvassing of the May 13 election returns enters its fourth day today in Cebu city and province where defective compact flash (CF) cards have tied up the electronic transmission of results in a handful of localities – 18 towns and cities out of 51 localities in the province, and three barangays of 80 Cebu city barangays.

As of last night, a margin of only 371 votes in his favor separated Edgardo Labella of Team Rama from re-electionist Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young of the Liberal Party, making pending results of barangays Cambinocot, Mambaling and Luz critical.

With luck, replacement CF cards urgently requested from Manila by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will arrive in Cebu today.

Then a proclamation can be made by the board of canvassers in the Capitol social hall for positions of governor, vice governor, district congressmen and members of the Provincial Board.

In City Hall, the canvass board has still to proclaim winners in the Cebu city vice mayoralty and remaining 7th and 8th slots of the Cebu City council south district and the 8th slot for the north district.

JUST WAIT

“We’ll just have to wait,” said Provincial Election Supervisor Eddie Aba.

He told reporters he’s hoping to proclaim all winners today if the CF cards arrive early. Several new CF cards arrived in Cebu yesterday and nine more are set to be delivered today.

“The CF cards should only come from Manila. Those cards are sensitive and under the custody of persons whose identity we don’t even know,” he said.

The memory cards contain data of Election Returns read by Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines used in the May 13 automated elections.

Based on the Comelec official and partial count, Liberal Party’s gubernatorial bet Hilario “Junjun” Davide III continued to hold a lead of more than 150,000 votes with his running mate Acting Gov. Agnes Magpale at 140,000 votes ahead over their closest rivals based on over half of precincts already canvassed.

As of 5 p.m. transmission of results for Cebu province reached 66.66 percent.

Aba said that under a Comelec ruling, if canvassing reaches 80 percent of election returns, they would proclaim the winners.

The provincial board of canvassers called a recess at 5:30 p.m. It will resume today at 9a.m.

“During the 2010 elections, by this time Provincial Board of Canvassers had already proclaimed winners in Cebu. But in this year’s polls, there were glitches with the CF cards,” said Aba.

A total of 13 towns and 5 component cities have defective CF cards.

“Dako ang kulang sa wala pa naka-transmit. This will affect results in local contests,” said Aba.

He said said nine replacement CF cards were with the cargo forwarding company 2GO ready for delivery.

“We’re worried about the delays,” said Magpale who visited the canvass area past 1 p.m. She continued to enjoy a comfortable lead over businessman Glenn Soco in the vice gubernatorial race.

Magpale said she was more concerned about the votes for LP’s candidate in the 3rd district, Pinamungahan Mayor Geraldine Yapha who is running for congress against Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.

At a press briefing at the LP Cebu headquarters, Yapha clarified that no final results were canvassed yet for the 3rd district congressional race.

She was reacting to a news item posted in abscbnnews.com prematurely declaring suspended Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia the winner.

In the Comelec website’s partial, unofficial results, Garcia had a lead of about 4,000 votes over Yapha.

“The transmission of results has not been 100 percent transmitted,” Yapha told reporters.

“If I lose, I’ll concede… We will wait for the transmission of all results to be completed,” she said.

In yesterday’s day long wait, only Tuburan town in the 3rd district was able to transmit its results at 5 p.m.

Tuburan Comelec officer Gilbert Pepito said Yapha won the congressional race there with 15,160 votes while Garcia has 10,142 votes.

CEBU CITY

In Cebu city, defective CF cards for three precincts contain 2,952 votes cast.

Overall, election returns from the city’s 589 of 592 clustered precincts show that Labella leads by only 371 votes against Young.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama was already proclaimed the winner in the mayoralty with a margin of over 6,376 votes.

“If I win and will be given another three years then I will continue to serve but if not, it’s okay because I have my own family and business that I need,” said Young.

Like his runningmate Rep. Tomas Osmeña, who lost his mayorship bid, Young said he too intends to remain active with BO-PK even if he loses the race. Young was City Hall’s education consultant from 2001 to 2010.

The CF cards from the three precincts were already considered “abandoned” after these were found to be defective, said Ferdinand Gujilde, chairman of the City Board of Canvassers.

“But there is no need to worry about the ballot boxes and the ballots inside because they are sealed according to protocol,” he said.

The ballots from barangays Luz and Cambinoct are kept inside their respective PCOS machines stored in the canvass area at the 4th floor social hall of the legislative building.

Ballots and the PCOS machine from barangay Mambaling were joined with other PCOS machines placed under a tent installed in front of the building. Policemen secure the area.

Only after election returns from the precincts are canvassed will the board proclaim a winner in the vice mayoral race.

The PCOS machine from Cambinocot contains 972 ballots while the one from Luz contains 983 ballots. The Mambaling PCOShas 997 ballots inside.

As of Tuesday’s canvass, Councilor Edgar Labella led by only 371 votes against re-electionist vice mayor Joy Augustus Young. Labella gathered 202, 255 votes as against the 201, 884 votes of Young.

Before Gujilde called a recess, he gave BO-PK and Team Rama copies of the board’s ruling on a motion by Oliver Booc of Team Rama made late on Tuesday afternoon asking the board of canvassers to re-insert the CF cards from the three barangays into the PCOS for the fourth time to see if this will work.

“This violates procedure and should have warranted immediate dismissal. But the board opted to liberalize and received it (the motion). As a matter of fact, it took the cudgels for the movant to furnish a copy of his motion to the other party,” said the ruling signed by Gujilde, city prosecutor Nicolas Sellon and Dep Ed Supervisor Rhea Mar Angtud.

“The act to re-insert the CF cards one last time is a function left to the sound discretion of the Board of Election Inspectors concerned for which the City Board of Canvassers has no jurisdiction.”

City Canvassers also warned Team Rama lawyers against making “a similar omission in the future (which) will be dealt with accordingly.”