Abad backs Comelec move to proclaim senators ahead of full count

Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – A Malacañang official on Sunday backed the Commission on Elections’ proclamation of winning senatorial candidates ahead of the full count of votes, but said anybody could hale the elections body to court.

“The Comelec is the Comelec,’’ Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, senior political adviser to President Aquino, said by phone. “At the end of the day, it’s the Comelec that oversees the election process. We should trust that they know what they’re doing.’’

Abad said Comelec should be presumed to be “exercising its function with regularity’’ unless proof would show it violated its own rules.

“People are free to go to the courts,’’ he said.

Election lawyers and watchdogs have assailed the Comelec, arguing that its proclamation of nine of the 12 candidates before all the votes could be counted was a breach of election rules. They pressed Comelec to void the partial proclamation.

Section 20 of the Amended Automated Election System Law of 2007 provides that the certificate of canvass, considered as official election results and used as a basis for the proclamation of a winning candidate, should only be produced upon completion of the canvass, they said.

Winning Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said proclaiming winners based on a “grouped canvass report’’ could set a bad precedent across the country.

The elections body, acting as the National Board of Canvassers, completed its proclamation of the winning candidates Saturday night, including nine from the administration coalition Team PNoy and three from the opposition United Nationalist Alliance.

The last three – Cynthia Villar, JV Ejercito and Gregorio Honasan – were proclaimed Saturday night after the last local certificate of canvass from Lanao del Norte arrived Saturday afternoon.

Abad, also the Liberal Party vice president for policy and platform, also said the Comelec was aware that the numerical basis for its proclamation was solid.

“There’s also the stats that are involved. You’re talking of more than 60 percent of the votes. There’s a science to being able to project [results]; it’s not a question of rules. At the end of the day, it’s the constitutional body that’s mandated to oversee the process,’’ he said.

Abad said Comelec improved, proclaiming winners in five days, compared with eight days in the 2010 elections.

While glitches attended the count, these did not affect the generally peaceful conduct of the mid-term elections, he said.

“As we go along, things will get better. What people fail to appreciate is that there’s a general sense of feeling of empowerment. Nobody knows how you voted. The voting process is fast; even before schemers had time to act, their votes had been canvassed,’’ he said.