Cayetano concedes, says his LP rival won

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano on Thursday conceded electoral defeat to Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, saying the administration candidate had won the vice presidential race.

“It is often said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. In this regard, I humbly concede my vice presidential bid to [Robredo], who, by all accounts and with 96 percent of the votes already tallied, is our country’s presumptive Vice President,” Cayetano, the vice presidential running mate of presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte, said in a statement.

According to Cayetano, Robredo, who had 13,988,939 votes based on data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec)-GMA mirror server as of 3:44 p.m. on Thursday, was “not only leading the race [but] ha[d] clearly won it.”

Robredo’s closest rival, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., had 13,774,268 votes.

Marcos, son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, is questioning the vote count, accusing the ruling Liberal Party (LP) of manipulating the results of the automated elections.

The Comelec said, however, it had found no signs of fraud in the vote count.

“While losing an election hurts, nothing is more painful than the sight of a divided country. Thus I call on all the other candidates to respect the people’s will and rally behind presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte and his presumptive Vice President,” Cayetano said.

He said he was “confident” that Robredo would “likewise respect and value the people’s will” by giving her “full support” to Duterte and his “vision [of ending] the disorder in the people’s lives and [introducing] real change [in] our country.”

“Let us begin the journey toward healing and unification,” he said as he called on the public to rally behind the “newly elected leaders.”

“It is in this crucial hour that our voice is needed the most. Let us work together and let the process of real change begin,” he said.

Robredo issued a statement, acknowledging Cayetano’s concession and thanking him for recognizing her electoral victory.

“I’m willing to cooperate with him in continuing to improve the lives of our countrymen,” she said.

“I hope this would end soon so that our country would start to heal,” she added.