'Peewee' wins in Namfrel tabulation

Former vice mayor Wenceslao "Peewee" Trinidad has won the recall election for the Pasay City mayorship based on unofficial results tallied yesterday by the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).

In the Namfrel Quick Count, Trinidad had a total of 36,967 votes, more than 2,000 votes ahead of Ricardo "Ding" Santos with 34,404.

Incumbent Pasay Mayor Jovito Claudio was a poor third at 14,463 votes while independent candidate Romulo Marcelo was last at 2,177.

But the top spot could still be up for grabs as Namfrel revealed yesterday that they were only able to count 1,009 of the total 1,099 precincts, or 80 percent of the polling stations, in Pasay City.

Namfrel Quick Count chairman Angel Gonzales Jr. said the votes in 90 precincts were "unreadable."

A single precinct has an equivalent of some 200 votes. The 90 uncounted precincts, therefore, translate to around 18,000 votes still unread, Gonzales said.

He added that the result of their quick count was unofficial and that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has the last say on who to declare the winner of the recall elections.

Namfrel is the Comelec's accredited quick count arm, but their final results are "unofficial."

In Comelec's own tally, Trinidad leads with 16,677 votes as against Santos' 14,889, or a margin of 1,788 votes as of 2:30 yesterday afternoon.

Trinidad expressed confidence that he would also come out the winner in the official count, and claimed that President Estrada had called him up to congratulate him on his victory.

"I have been a winner in any elective position," the veteran politician said.

Santos for his part preferred to wait for the final results issued by the Comelec.

Meanwhile, canvassing of the election results at the Cuneta Astrodome was suspended close to midnight Saturday after a joint motion for the moratorium was filed by the legal counsels of the three top candidates.

Lawyers Reynaldo Bagatsing for Santos, Pete Cuadra for Claudio, and a certain Medina for Trinidad, filed before the Comelec Board of Canvassers headed by Comelec chairman Harriet Demetriou a joint motion seeking a temporary halt to the counting.

The three cited physical exhaustion of their watchers as well as that of the canvassers, and the Comelec board promptly acceded.

The counting of the ballots was suspended at exactly 11:53 Saturday night and resumed at around 8 a.m. Sunday.

Demetriou said that before the start of canvassing, Cuadra tried a last-ditch attempt to nullify the recall elections as he questioned their constitutionality.

She said the move surprised her since the arguments presented before her were the same ones used when Claudio's camp tried to get a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court (SC).

Claudio had earlier questioned the funding of the elections, but the SC said the argument was baseless and allowed the recall to proceed.

Demetriou said Claudio himself participated in the electoral process by casting his vote, in fact the first one among the four candidates early Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, Metro Manila police director Chief Superintendent Edgar Aglipay said yesterday the Pasay City recall elections were generally peaceful.

The police recorded six gun ban violations, and arrested 28 for violating the liquor ban, 22 candidate supporters for electioneering, and two others for vote-buying, but so far not a single violent incident has occurred, Aglipay told The STAR.

"It was a very peaceful political exercise. And we are grateful to the candidates themselves for restraining their supporters from resorting to violence to attain their goal," Aglipay said.

Those arrested for electioneering and alleged vote-buying were said to be from the camp of Claudio, but Aglipay admitted they had no hard evidence to pin the ailing city official down.

Aglipay commended Southern Police District director Senior Superintendent Manuel Cabigon and his men "for a job well done."--With Non Alquitran, Jaime Laude, Ella Oducayen