Noy-Bi team wins; proclamation set By Gerry Baldo and Angie M. Rosales 06/09/2010

Mar mulls electoral protest Noy-Bi team wins; proclamation set By Gerry Baldo and Angie M. Rosales 06/09/2010 It’s final and official: Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino and Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay won the vote from the Congress’ National Board of Canvassers (NBoC) tally and will be proclaimed, as announced, president-elect and vice president-elect at 2 p.m. today, and will officially start their reign at noon of June 30, 2010. But the joint committee of the Senate and the House canvassing the presidential and vice presidential votes ended yesterday amid continuing protests from the lawyers of the losing candidates. Only around 12,489 votes from Lanao del Sur were left uncanvassed. The proclamation of the new president and new vice president will be held at the session hall of the House of Representatives after the committee report of the board shall have been put into a vote and approved by the joint session of the Senate and the House. Liberal Party’s Aquino and Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino- United Opposition’s Binay won with total votes of 15,208,678 and 14,645,574, respectively. “I am glad that Congress has concluded the canvass of votes,” Binay said in a statement yesterday. Binay thanked those who have helped him in the campaign and those who served as his inspiration. He thanked his fraternity brothers in the Alpha Phi Omega, the mayors and other local government officials who helped in his campaign. He also acknowledged the “help and guidance” of Sen. Francis Escudero. “Likewise my warm thanks to my friend and kumpare Sen. Francis Escudero for his guidance and help. I would also like to pay tribute to three individuals who have inspired me to serve our people. Former President Cory Aquino, Fernando Poe, Jr., and former President Erap Estrada,” he said. But lawyers for the losing candidates were not happy with the entire process even as they summarized the proceedings as not being reflective of the true will of the people. “...for an election like this, I am afraid we do a disservice to the Filipino people,” lawyer Homobono Adaza, counsel for presidential candidate Sen. Jamby Madrigal, said.“ I appeal to the members of this committee, and to the members of the joint public session of Congress to analyze very well the judgment on the issues we have here because you are not only ruling on the issues we have submitted, you are ruling also on what would be the judgment of the Filipino people,” Adaza said. The counsel for Bangon Pilipinas presidential candidate was more articulate with the way the PCOS machines performed. He said that the system had failed to provide the voter as way to confirm his or her votes. “The voter did not know whether his vote was registered or not, the ATM operator is in a much better and happier position, when he goes to the bank and inserts his card, he knows it is his account, because there is a pin code, there is an account balance, and he has a receipt, but the P7 billion technology does not provide the voter anything at all to enable him to verify whether it was his choice that was registered or not,” the lawyer told the panel. The Bangon lawyer also said that nobody knew how the machine conducted the count. “All we have were a few testings and then the machine will add it up and this impresses everybody,“ he said. The lawyer also said that there is proof that the PCOS machine has difficulty in counting even as he pointed out the erroneous figures that the PCOS machines had dished out before the election. “It cannot even count the registered voters in the country, it cannot even properly indicate the proper dates in the election returns, it is capable of electronic schizophrenia because it has even to reconcile itself,” the Bangon lawyer said. “Anything else that follows the PCOS machine has counted would be in the nature of electronic hearsay. In the manual system at least the voter knew whether his choice was registered or not,” he said. .... MORE     Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100609hed1.html

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