The candidates – Congresswman Leni Robredo of Camarines Sur province in the Bicol Region of the ruling Liberal Party and Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, the only son and namesake of the late dictator – are running neck-and-neck three days after the May 9 balloting.
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Philippine vice presidential candidate Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, center, talks to reporters after a press conference in suburban Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday, May 10, 2016.
“We even haven’t reached fifty percent of the counts”, Gutierrez said in a press briefing at the LP headquarters in Cuba, Quezon City, on Monday night.
The election commission has yet to formally receive Marcos’ request and the insinuations of irregularities are based on a partial and unofficial count, according to James Jimenez, a commission spokesman.
As at 10pm and with 95.65 per cent of the vote counted, Ms Robredo has chalked up 13.97 million votes against Mr Marcos’ 13.74 million.
Cayetano urged other candidates to respect the people’s will and rally behind presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte and Robredo.
Guanzon said there are still votes from Maguindanao and from voters overseas that have not been transmitted yet.
Despite a strong showing, Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr is falling short of bagging the nation’s second-highest post, setting back a political comeback meant to rehabilitate the Marcos name. Meanwhile, Bongbong is trailed behind Leni Robredo with more than 200,000 votes between them in the vice-presidential polls.
Guanzon said that the poll body will also be getting the remaining percentage of votes from local absentee and detainee voting.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista last night strongly denied that there was a new script installed in Comelec’s transparency server.
Election Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said there was no reason to stop the official count.
Bautista said the commission has not yet received the request as of Wednesday. His father died in exile.
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President Benigno Aquino III, whose parents were democracy champions who helped topple the senior Marcos, campaigned against the junior, who has never clearly apologized for abuses of his father.
