15 defective CF cards delay proclamation

CEBU, Philippines - The Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC) is hoping to proclaim all winners by this afternoon after taking a recess from the transmission and canvassing yesterday.

This was after learning that 15 municipalities and cities would not be able to transmit results due to defective Compact Flash (CF) cards.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Provincial Supervisor Eddie Aba decided to take the advice of the whole board to take a recess since the malfunctioning CF cards needed to be replaced with new ones that had to be shipped from Manila.

Aba said yesterday the CF cards that are expected to arrive today are for the towns of Tuburan, Sibonga, San Remigio, Ronda, Naga, Dalaguete, San Francisco, Alcoy, Badian, Balamban, Catmon, Compostela and Carmen as well as for the cities of Mandaue and Danao.

Reconfigured CF cards were initially shipped for three other cities and towns, namely; Bogo, Sta. Fe and Carcar.

Prior the decision of the PBOC to call a recess, the canvassing was at 62 percent.

With the defective CF cards, the Comelec was delayed in their proclamation for more than a day. Comelec-7 Regional Director Temie Lambino said that in his timeframe, proclamation for local candidates could have been done by evening of May 13.

Aba explained though that with Comelec Resolution 9700 that was released yesterday, municipal and city board of canvassers can proclaim winning candidates even if there are still clustered precincts that have not been transmitted yet as long as they can determine that the remaining votes will not affect the results.

According to the resolution, the Boards of Canvassers may proclaim the winning candidates based on the Grouped Canvass Report generated from the Consolidation and Canvassing System even if all the results are not received provided that the votes that have not yet been transmitted would not surpass the lead of the winning candidate.

In Bogo city for example, Election Officer Michael Angelo Sarno explained to The Freeman that they could not transmit yet since they had two defective CF cards. But he said that since one mayoral candidate was leading with sufficient votes, then they may have to proclaim today.

At 3:30 a.m. yesterday, the Cebu Provincial Canvassing Center received the first transmitted result coming from the municipality of Aloguinsan. It was almost nine hours since the voting was closed. In the 2010 National Election, the Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS) received the first transmitted result at around 1:00 a.m.

The delay was reportedly due to the problems in the transmission of votes.

Aloguinsan has 18,327 registered voters and 14,888 numbers of actual voters. This was followed by the municipality of Argao at 4:09 a.m. with 42,438 registered voters and 35,992 numbers of actual voters.

Next, was the municipality of Liloan at 4:45 a.m. with 53,585 registered voters and 44,332 numbers of actual voters. At 4:47 a.m., the municipality of Samboan with 12,165 registered voters and 10,530 numbers of actual voters.

Then results from Madridejos came at 4:50 a.m. with 23,583 registered voters and 16,306 numbers of actual voters.

As of May 13 up to yesterday, the board of canvassers had a recess four times.

Also yesterday, acting governor Agnes Magpale together with her counsel and her family visited the Social Hall of the Cebu Provincial Capitol at 5:00 a.m. to check whether the canvassing had started. But the board was on recess so they immediately left. – (FREEMAN)