Rodrigo Duterte appears to have cemented his lead in the presidential race in Hong Kong, advancing way ahead of the field, according to votes tallied by the Special Board of Canvassers at the Bayanihan Center in Kennedy Town.
As of midnight, Duterte had racked up 27,305 votes. He was followed by Miriam Defensor-Santiago with 6,534.
Trailing behind were Mar Roxas with 4,113 votes, Grace Poe with 2,638 and Jojo Binay with 1,004.
Roy Seneres, who died February 8 but whose name was not removed from the ballots. received nine votes.
In the vice presidential race, Bongbong Marcos pushed further ahead at to 22,766 votes.
Following far behind were Alan Pater Cayetano with 11,490 votes, Leni Robredo with 5,613, Chiz Escudero with 1,265, Antonio Trillanes IV with 265, and Gringo Honasan with 166.
The votes counted so far came from 42,024 voters who showed up from April 9 to May 9, representing an 89 per cent turnout out of the 46,972 registered voters listed in 224 clustered precincts.
So far, 34.4% of the votes in Hong Kong had been canvassed.
The atmosphere in the main hall of Bayanihan Center, where the counting is being done, has been somber, with the crowd dominated by poll watchers from the Duterte and Migrante camps.
At the rate the canvassing has been progressing, the votes in Hong Kong would have been counted by early Tuesday.
After this, the SBOC will then count the votes cast by Filipinos in Taiwan, Macau, Beijng and the rest of China.
This is expected to be finished by mid-Tuesday.
Consul General Bernardita Catalla was seen until 11:30pm Monday, overseeing the collation of SD cards in the precincts upstairs, for uploading of data to the Collating and Canvassing System, which will transmit the results to the national canvassing center in Manila.