MANILA, Philippines – While the poll chief expects to proclaim winning candidates the next day, the canvassing of votes moved at a snail’s pace Tuesday, May 14, with canvassers having processed only 2.7% of all certificates of canvass (COCs).

The national board of canvassers (NBOC), which is composed of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc, canvassed only 8 of the 301 COCs from around the Philippines. The NBOC ended the first day of canvassing at around 9:30 pm on Tuesday, after having begun it 11 hours earlier.

The NBOC will resume canvassing at 9 am on Wednesday, May 15, said poll chief Sixto Brillantes Jr.

On Wednesday, when Brillantes expects to proclaim all 12 winning senators, the Comelec will still have to canvass 293 COCs. If Brillantes’ self-imposed deadline is to be followed, the Comelec will have 10 hours to do this.

In a press conference, Brillantes said poor signal has delayed transmission in some areas.

Comelec Commissioner Elias Yusoph, in another interview, attributed the problem to “very close” fights in some localities. “They cannot transmit. They cannot reduce the threshold, because it will affect the result,” Yusoph said.

1st COCs for admin

Earlier on Tuesday, the Comelec said it will allow local election officials to lower the threshold for canvassing votes. This means local election officials can disregard some votes, and proceed with proclaiming the winners, as long as these votes wouldn’t affect the standing of candidates.

This was expected to hasten the canvassing process.

To avoid delays in the canvassing of votes for senator, the NBOC also suspended the canvassing for party list. 

The opposition coalition United Nationalist Alliance on Tuesday criticized the Comelec for the delay in election results. 

So far, the Comelec has aggregated votes from 6 COCs. It will aggregate the votes from the other COCs on Wednesday.

The aggregated votes show Team PNoy candidates leading, 9-3:

1. Llamanzares, Grace Poe – 391,906

2. Escudero, Francis – 356, 704

3. Legarda, Loren – 349,357

4. Cayetano, Alan Peter – 342,290

5. Angara, Juan Edgardo – 322,236

6. Binay, Nancy – 305,019

7. Pimentel, Koko – 304,352

8. Aquino, Bam – 296,256

9. Trillanes, Antonio – 281,637

10. Ejercito, JV – 277,899

11. Villar, Cynthia – 263,408

12. Gordon, Richard – 263,009

While the canvassing process remained slow, the Rappler Mirror Server has received 69% of election returns as of posting time. The partial, unofficial tally on Rappler also shows a 9-3 lead in favor of Team PNoy. (Check the results from the Rappler Mirror Server through this link.)

Official vs unofficial results

Only the NBOC, however, can finalize the tallies for senatorial and party-list positions. 

In a press conference on Monday night, May 13, Brillantes explained that election results published through two of 3 servers – the Comelec central server and the transparency server – remain unofficial. Initial results published by media groups, including Rappler, come from the transparency mirror server. (Watch more in the video below.)

“The official one goes into a ladderized system,” he said.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez earlier said the public should wait for, and refer to, the official count to determine the 12 new members of the Philippine Senate. – Rappler.com