The Comelec official, who did not want to be identified, said Mrs. Arroyo won by about 900,000 votes over Poe based on 174 certificates of canvass (COCs) that the poll body received.
"Don’t quote me, but Mrs. Arroyo won (by) less than one million votes," said the poll official, who added the President got 12,409,109 votes against Poe’s 11,486,601 in the Comelec tally.
The President’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal, quoting figures from COCs released to the administration coalition by the Comelec, said Mrs. Aquino won the elections by over a million votes.
But the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino insisted that its standard-bearer Fernando Poe Jr. is winning, based on the KNP’s own tally with 70 percent of the votes counted.
As far as Malacañang is concerned, Mrs. Arroyo won with 12,554,127 votes compared to the 11,493,345 garnered by Poe. The figures cited by the Palace are derived from 173 out of 177 official COCs tabulated by the Comelec.
Mrs. Arroyo, according to the Comelec tally, posted a margin of 1,060,782 votes over Poe. Independent presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo Lacson was a far third with 3,445,976 votes, former education secretary Raul Roco received 2,055,876 votes, while evangelist Eduardo Villanueva came in last with 1,927,491 votes.
Mrs. Arroyo also led Poe in the unofficial quick count of the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel). As of 7 last night, the President had 8,033,305 votes against Poe’s 7,289,337. Lacson came in third with 2,153,961, Roco fourth with 1,250,908 and Villanueva with 1,226,550.
Poe’s camp, on the other hand, said he had widened his lead over Mrs. Arroyo by 502,183 votes, citing the quick count of the KNP’s People’s Tally and Action Center (PTAC) in San Juan as of 6:32 a.m. yesterday.
The PTAC’s quick count showed that Poe received 9,783,017 votes while Mrs. Arroyo got 9,280,834 votes.
According to PTAC operations manager Allan Mauricio, they have already tabulated 24,962,686 votes, amounting to 72.26 percent of some 43 million registered voters, based on actual and official certificates of canvass.
In the vice presidential race, Mrs. Arroyo’s running mate, Sen. Noli de Castro, received 12,239,977 votes in the PATC tally as against 11,336,296 votes for Sen. Loren Legarda, Poe’s running mate. De Castro led Legarda by 903,681 votes.
Officials of the KNP, headed by national campaign manager Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay and KNP spokesman Mike Romero, said they were confident Poe will maintain and possibly increase his lead over Mrs. Arroyo up to the end of the tabulation and emerge a "clear winner" in the presidential elections.
Ranking election officials, who also requested anonymity, said that with only 800,000 votes remaining to be counted, the President’s lead appears to be insurmountable.
The votes remaining to be canvassed were from Sarangani province (221,912 votes), Cotabato City (121,398 votes) and Lanao del Norte (465,155 votes). Sources said Poe won in Cotabato City, while Mrs. Arroyo won in Sarangani.
The COCs from Lanao del Norte have been delivered to the Comelec, but have yet to be canvassed as of press time.
Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos himself admitted keeping score.
"Some poll watchers are tallying the (votes for) president and vice president. In seeing the votes for senators, I am also looking, keeping track of it, but I am not going to tell you," he said.
Sen. Edgardo Angara, who leads the opposition bloc supporting Poe, expressed surprise over the leak by a senior elections official.
"I think it’s an outrageous statement and wholly uncalled for if it’s true," he said. "He has no business saying that because the constitutional body that should make that kind of announcement is the Congress based on a national canvass."
Exit polls and the unofficial tally by the election watchdog National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) also point to Mrs. Arroyo, who came to power in 2001 following the ouster of her predecessor Joseph Estrada, winning a full six-year term.
But after a laborious manual count, provincial-level tallies must be checked by Congress before the winner can be announced.
"We should be able to finish this before mid-June," Senate President Franklin Drilon said in a radio interview.
"Where did (the opposition) get their figures? While the Comelec is only canvassing the votes for senator, that did not prevent us from copying the official results reflected on these official documents on the presidential candidates," he said.
Macalintal challenged Poe and other presidential candidates who will contest the results of the Comelec’s canvass to file their complaints with the poll body.
"Anybody who will contest the authenticity or due execution of the COCs has to make his manifestation before the Comelec during the canvass of the COCs," he said.
Macalintal noted that since May 15 "up to the present," no candidate or political party — including the KNP — has come before the Comelec to complain that these COCs are "fake or spurious."
He added that he and Koalisyon ng Katapatan at Karanasan sa Kinabukasan (K-4) campaign manager Gabriel Claudio were compelled to reveal to the public the results of the Comelec’s canvass to disprove Poe’s claim that he was winning in the elections.
"The President is also entitled to self-defense on claims that there (has been) massive cheating in the May 10 elections," Macalintal said.
He explained that they had copied the results for presidential candidates from the COCs used by the Comelec "for us to know the truth, what is the real score in the presidential (race) and about the different claims of the other presidential candidates."
Macalintal explained that each major political party can verify from their own COCs which presidential candidate won in the May 10 elections.
"The law provides the parties copies of the COCs, which they could use as evidence to prove any irregularity. So, anybody who claims the result is irregular or marred with fraud can always come up with their own COCs. The COCs cannot be valid for one and invalid for others," he said.
Macalintal said since the COCs used by the Comelec in determining the first eight winners of the senatorial race are "authentic, genuine and official," there is no reason to doubt that Mrs. Arroyo won the presidential elections.
"If you will claim that these COCs are fake, we cannot elect any senators," he said, noting these winners would be "fake senators because their proclamation was based on fake documents."
Macalintal said any protest or complaint against the proclamation of the new president has to be made before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and not before Congress, which he said is tasked only to canvass the COCs for the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Claudio, for his part, said they were compelled to come out with the Comelec tally to dispel all the rumors of massive cheating being peddled by the opposition through their advertisements and text messages.
He said that based on the COCs tabulated by the Comelec, Mrs. Arroyo won in at least 45 provinces and highly urbanized cities.
"If we will scrutinize the regions, the President is winning or has won in nine out of 16 administrative regions, while Poe has won only in seven regions," Claudio said.
He pointed out that the President’s margin of victory in Regions 6 and 7 (Western and Central Visayas) alone "are enough to obliterate the lead or wining margin of Poe in all regions that he claims he had won."
Based on the Comelec’s tally, Mrs. Arroyo has a margin of 885,594 votes over Poe in Western Visayas and 1,405,115 votes in Central Visayas.
Claudio, however, clarified that the K-4 was not trying to preempt Congress in its duty as the National Board of Canvassers of tallying the results and proclaiming the winners of the presidential and vice presidential elections.
"We are not claiming that these are the official nor the complete results of the elections but this is as honest, as authentic a basis as we can gather" to be able to tell the opposition to be careful and refrain from making hasty declarations because they do not have any basis to make them, he said.
Claudio added that they did not bank too much on the reports made by their poll watchers — they released "official tabulation figures based on official documents."
Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye told The STAR that Mrs. Arroyo has received the "highest mandate" to serve a full six-year term in office even as Claudio asked the public to wait for the final results of the presidential and vice presidential elections.
"The total number of votes that Mrs. Arroyo got in this election is even bigger than the ten million votes that former President Joseph Estrada got in the 1998 elections," Bunye said.
Claudio said "the above (election results) notwithstanding, we urge the nation and all candidates and parties concerned to await the results of the official canvass to be conducted by Congress relative to the presidential and vice presidential elections."
"Accordingly, the parties concerned must, in the interest of truth and the equanimity of our country, refrain from making premature and illegal claims of victory, especially if they are false and without factual basis," he added.
Claudio was assisted by Macalintal and another K-4 legal counsel, Albert Agra, as well as the coalition’s media bureau chief Cerge Remonde, in presenting the Comelec’s tabulated results to reporters.
"On the part of the K-4 campaign and media team, if the opposition — specifically the KNP — ang nagpahayag na sila raw ang nanalo noong halalan, we will continue to challenge them to present proof, to present the basis for their claims," Claudio said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. expressed hope the Senate and the House of Representatives "will canvass correctly" the results of the presidential and vice presidential elections and that the outcome of the national electoral canvass would "ultimately reflect the true voice of the people."
Guingona said the future of the country "may well hang not only in a correct canvass but also in the proper conduct of those in charge."
"Let the will of the people prevail," he said last night, before the start of the actual canvass today.
Guingona noted that the latest report by the election watchdog National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) showed Mrs. Arroyo with 7,952,228 votes compared to 7,214,787 votes garnered by Poe.
Guingona said even as "both camps" of Mrs. Arroyo and Poe "claim victory" in the presidential polls, "let us in fervent hope, pray that Providence affords the nation the destiny it deserves." — With Jose Rodel Clapano, AFP, Reuters