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Sunday, May 27, 2007
Cebu votes 'save' Zubiri
CEBU CITY -- Representative Miguel Zubiri jumped two slots to grab the 12th and last seat in the official tally Saturday afternoon after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila canvassed the votes from Cebu City and Province.
The Team Unity candidate dislodged lawyer Aquilino Pimentel III of the Genuine Opposition (GO), who fell to 14th place, with about five million votes still to be canvassed from other parts of the country.
Pinoy Votes: Sun.Star Election 2007 Coverage
View here the list of local winners
As of Friday night, Pimentel was ahead of Zubiri, who was in 14th place, by 102,068 votes. After the Cebu votes were factored in, however, the two switched places and Zubiri led Pimentel by 128,607 votes.
One other Team Unity candidate benefited from the so-called Cebu effect: Joker Arroyo went from ninth place on Friday to eighth place, overtaking Alan Peter Cayetano of GO. Arroyo landed in the first two spots in Cebu City and Province's official tallies.
His "Wednesday group" teammate Manuel Villar, who ran as a guest candidate of GO, also rose by one step to third place, overtaking Panfilo Lacson. (With 91.29 percent of votes counted, the unofficial C-Cimpel count placed Villar in eighth place in Cebu, while Lacson was in 13th place. About 159,990 votes stood between them.)
"Formal defects" were noted in the certificates of canvass (COCs) and statements of votes from Cebu City and Province.
But since these were not enough to invalidate the election results, the National Board of Canvassers finished going over the forms Saturday afternoon.
As of 5 p.m., the board was already through canvassing the results from Cebu. About 1.2 million registered voters actually voted in Cebu last May 14.
Impact
Although he could not cite figures yet, Cebu City Election Officer Marchel Sarno, interviewed by phone from Manila, confirmed the Cebu vote had a big impact in the ranking.
Sarno said apart from Zubiri, Mike Defensor also benefited from the Cebu vote, but it was not enough for him to barge into the top 12.
GO's Antonio Trillanes remained in 11th place even after the Cebu results were tallied.
Representatives of mostly militant party-list groups were the ones who raised objections on the Cebu statement of votes and COCs, Sarno said.
But what were noted were not material defects but formal ones, like the failure on the tabulator's part to properly write the equivalent words for each figure.
Objections
"Pareha sa 7,760 man siguro to. Sakto ang figures pero ang pagkasulat nalimtan og butang ang word nga 'thousand.' Nya dali ra man na ma-trace nimo kung asay sakto (In one case, the figure was 7,760, but the word `thousand' was omitted from the final column. But defects like that are easy to trace and correct," he said.
In another COC, there was an erasure in one tabulator's name, but that wasn't considered enough ground to invalidate the document.
"Pasagad na man lang to sila'g object. Maglibog ka'g abogado ba to sila o dili ang mga representante atong militant groups. Hasto gud result nga dako ang ilaha na-object-kan pa nila (They just kept objecting. Makes one wonder if they were lawyers or not. Even those documents that showed a large number of votes for them, they objected to)," Sarno added.
While Zubiri and fellow Team Unity candidate Ralph Recto did well in Cebu City, placing eighth and 11th, respectively, Trillanes and Pimentel did not figure in the top 12 here.
In the unofficial C-Cimpel count, with 91.29 percent of all precincts in Cebu Province counted, Defensor was fifth, and Zubiri, sixth.
Trillanes placed 23rd and Pimentel took 16th place. (RHM/With IDA of Sun.Star Cebu)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. (May 27, 2007 issue)
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