The Congress, sitting as National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), has confirmed the election of the two top officials who will take over at noon on June 30.
The Senate and the House convened in joint session on May 24 and laid the ground rules for the canvassing of the votes for president and vice president, which started the next day. The two chambers also designated the members of the joint committee, eight from each chamber with five alternates.
By May 27, the NBOC had finished tallying the votes from 167 Certificates of Canvass (CoCs) from the provinces across the Philippines and from local and overseas absentee voting areas.
The official results for President are: Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte with 16,601,997 votes; LP’s Mar Roxas II with 9,978,175; independent candidate Grace Poe 9, 100, 991; outgoing Vice President Jejomar Binay 5,416,140; Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago 1,455,532; and, the late congressman Roy Seneres 25,779 votes.
For vice president, the official vote tally had Robredo winning by 263, 473 over Senator Ferdinand “Bong-bong” Marcos Jr. Robredo had 14, 418, 817 votes while Marcos got 14, 155, 334. Other results: Alan Peter Cayetano 5,903,379; Francis Escudero 4,931,962; Antonio Trillanes IV 868,501; Gragorio Honasan 788,881.
While Senators Poe, Cayetano, Escudero, Trillanes and Honasan lost in the May 9 elections, they will still be going back to the Senate to serve the remaining three of their six-year term until 2019.
During the three-day canvassing of votes, lawyers for Marcos questioned more than three million “undervotes” that, they claimed, were unaccounted for. But lawyers for Robredo said having “undervotes” is normal in any election.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, chairman of the Senate panel at the canvassing board, added: “Undervoting is a right of the voter. It’s like an abstention."
Other objections were glossed over by the NBOC, saying it was beyond its powers to resolve these. Marcos’ lawyers said they were considering whether or not to file a protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, although they cited the additional cost.
The vice presidential race was a difficult one for Robredo, who started with a single-digit awareness in the survey ratings compared with the other contenders, particularly Marcos and Escudero who topped pre-election surveys.
Interviewed on television, Robredo said her victory was an “impossible feat.” She said she would not have entered politics had her husband not died in a plane crash in 2012. After Jesse’s death, she was convinced to run for a seat at the House of Representatives in 2013 mid-term elections representing the third district of Camarines Sur. Jesse Robredo was a long-time mayor of Naga City in Camarines Sur.
The NBOC’s final count was poignant for Robredo because on the same day, her late husband would have turned 58 years old.
