DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of PDP-Laban is leading in the presidential race based on partial unofficial election results being transmitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Transparency Server.
As of 7:16 p.m. on Monday, Duterte has received 7,786,156 votes with Sen. Grace Poe trying to get close with 4,430,320 votes.
Former Interior and Local Government Secretary and Liberal Party standard bearer Manuel Roxas (4,256,268 votes), Vice President Jejomar Binay (2,631,595) and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago (821,381) are in the third, fourth and fifth places, respectively.
On the vice presidential race, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos and Naga Rep. Lenie Robredo are neck and neck in the initial results.
As of 7:16 p.m., Marcos registered 7,223,906 votes, while Robredo has 6,469,416.
The Comelec en banc yesterday officially convened to act as the National Board of Canvassers. However, it suspended its session as they were no sufficient election results to canvass yet.
Bautista also refused to say whether the next president will already be known based on the partial and unofficial results coming out.
“We are not statisticians… our job is to count right so when the numbers come out that should be made public, we don’t want to make a trend,” Bautista said.
“That’s is not for Comelec to do. As far as the Comelec is concerned we have a ministerial task of counting the votes right,” he added.
However, Bautista said the Comelec is targeting to come up with the official announcement of winners for senatorial and party-list groups not later than one week.
In a separate interview, Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said it might take three to seven days to officially announce the 12 new senators.
Under the law, the canvassing and consolidation of votes will be conducted by the Board of Canvassers in each municipality, city, district and province. For senators and party-lists groups, the Comelec will act as the National Board of Canvassers. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives and the Senate will act as the National Board of Canvassers to consolidate the country-wide votes and proclaim the winners for president and vice president.