Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday piled up her lead over her main challenger, actor Fernando Poe Junior, according to a government-sanctioned quick count of last week's elections.
The National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), a citizens' poll watchdog accredited to conduct an unofficial tally of last Monday's vote, said its latest count found Arroyo with 3,408,988 votes over Poe's 2,414,479 votes.
The count covered 23.93 per cent of all votes cast as of early yesterday, NAMFREL said.
It was the first time for Arroyo to post such a margin over Poe, with the two rivals in a see-saw battle in the NAMFREL count in the past four days.
The official results of the elections are not expected for weeks, and the laborious process of handcounting the votes has triggered accusations of widespread cheating and warnings of a mass uprising or a coup d'etat.
Poe and two other challengers -- former police chief Senator Panfilo Lacson and televangelist Eduardo Villanueva -- have vowed to gather evidence of the alleged fraud, including vote-buying and massive voter disenfranchisement.
Poe's camp has even warned of a mass uprising if it was proven that he lost to Arroyo due to fraud.
Arroyo's camp has denied any cheating, and encouraged her rivals to use the legal process in their protest.
"If there are indeed incidents of cheating, then they should document them and file a formal protest," said presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye.
"Let us remain calm about this. We cannot afford to have disorder right after the elections.
"There might have been cheating in the local levels, some disruptions in the counting and disenfranchisement," he said.
"But these incidents are not enough evidence to claim that there was massive and systematic cheating," he said.
Bunye reiterated that while the government would exercise maximum tolerance of groups that might take to the streets to protest the alleged fraud, it would not hesitate to use the full force of the law against those with "sinister plots".
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