Opposition leaders slammed national election officials yesterday for prematurely disclosing incumbent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's victory in the May 10 presidential vote, saying the move was illegal and contrary to their own count showing her rival won.
Two top election officials on Monday disclosed that Arroyo beat opposition front-runner and popular actor Fernando Poe by a narrow margin, based on a secret count of official election returns.
Under the constitution, only Congress counts votes for president and vice president.
"It's very irresponsible," Poe's lawyer, Harriet Demetriou, told radio station DZRH, adding that in her personal tally, the actor won.
She said Elections Commission Chairman Benjamin Abalos should face possible legal charges as head of the agency responsible for the disclosure. Other critics called for Abalos' impeachment.
Congress was to approve rules for the vote count today and try to proclaim the winner before the June 30 inauguration amid threats by opposition politicians to challenge questionable ballots, which could hamper the process.
Abalos has said his commission was responsible for counting the votes for senatorial candidates, but also kept track of the presidential votes, which appear on the same election documents. He said he could not announce the results of the presidential race publicly.
But two top elections officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the unofficial count showed a narrow win for Arroyo.
"It's clear, but Congress is the one who will proclaim that," one of the officials told reporters, referring to Arroyo's victory.
The officials said the count showed Arroyo with 39.5 percent of the vote to Poe's 36.6 percent. The margin of Arroyo's lead was more than 900,000 votes, they said.
Two areas -- Sarangani province and Cotabato city -- remain to be counted, but they do not represent enough votes to affect the outcome, the officials said.
Arroyo also was leading Poe by more than 740,000 votes in a government-sanctioned but unofficial "quick count" by the election watchdog National Movement for Free Elections. It has tallied more than 60 percent of 216,000 election precincts.
Poe's party has warned of a "people power" revolt if he's cheated of victory. Asked if he would recognize a winner proclaimed by the administration-dominated Congress, Poe said he would, "if it's an honest election."
But he and his supporters have claimed they have evidence of massive fraud and would not allow Congress to count questionable election documents, threatening to impede an already notoriously slow count.
Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said he hoped Congress could proclaim the winner quickly, adding the administration was "concerned about the effect of a protracted canvass upon our political and economic stability."
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
INSURGENT ACTION: A local independence movement in Balochistan, alleged by Pakistan’s government to be backed by India, claimed responsibility for the strike A suicide bomber detonated an vehicle-borne IED near a railway as a passenger train passed through the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, killing at least 23 people and wounding over 70, officials said. The explosion caused two of the train cars to overturn and catch fire, according to footage shared online. The attack happened in an area where security forces are usually stationed, badly damaging several nearby buildings and smashing more than a dozen vehicles parked along the road, according to witnesses and images circulating on social media. Doctors at local hospitals said they had received the wounded, with 20 in critical
RSS