No early proclamation for Duterte

MANILA, Philippines – Lawmakers yesterday laid down the rules for canvassing of votes for president and vice president in the May 9 elections, even as they made clear there would be no early proclamation for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as president-elect even if all of his rivals have already conceded to him.

Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. opened the session at around 4 p.m. and promptly got down to the business of approving the rules for canvassing.

“We cannot proclaim Mayor Digong ahead of the winning vice presidential candidate,” House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said.

“That is because the basis for declaring the presidential and vice presidential winners is the same document that we will canvass, which is the certificate of canvass (COC) of votes,” he said.

Gonzales was commenting on the call of vice presidential aspirant Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for Congress to immediately declare Duterte as president-elect.

Marcos, who lost the vice presidential race to administration rival Rep. Leni Robredo based on the unofficial tally, said his lawyers would scrutinize the votes for vice presidential candidates as reflected in the COCs.

Gonzales said Congress, sitting as a canvassing board, cannot proclaim the winners unless all the COCs are tallied.

 “A partial proclamation cannot happen. It has not happened in the past,” he said.

He recalled that during the canvassing for the 2010 election results, there were proposals to proclaim then winning presidential candidate senator Benigno Aquino III ahead of the vice presidential winner, but Aquino’s early proclamation was not done.

“We have to finish the canvass first. We will do the canvassing as fast as we can,” he said.

However, he could not give a timeline for the completion of the count and proclamation of winners.

“Our mandate is to determine the winners before June 30, when the term of office of all incumbent elective officials expires,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, ballot boxes from the local and overseas absentee voting were the first to be opened yesterday by the Senate and the House of Representatives, which finally convened in joint session as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC).

Sen. Vicente Sotto III and Abakada party-list Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz separately took the floor to propose amendments to Rule 10 of the proposed rules on proclamation of the president and vice president.

The proposals took into consideration the fact that while Duterte is indisputably ahead of his closest rival in the presidential race, the vice presidential contest between Robredo and Marcos is close. Robredo is leading by a narrow margin but Marcos is alleging fraud.