TWELVE winning senators and partial winning party-list groups are expected to be proclaimed on Tuesday or Wednesday, said Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia on Sunday.
In an interview with Super Radyo dzBB, Garcia explained that if all the remaining Certificates of Canvass (COCs) will be canvassed within the day, then preparation for the proclamation will be done the next day.
A total of 149 out of 173 COCs have been canvassed as of Saturday. The 24 remaining COCs are composed of 19 manual overseas COCs, one manual COC from the Vulnerable Sector Office, one manual COCs from 63 barangays, one electronic COC from Lanao del Sur, one electronic overseas COC from Hong Kong, and one electronic COC from Jordan.
“Kung darating po ito ngayon, hanggang Miyerkoles kaya natin mag-proclaim ng ating nahalal na senador. Ang gusto namin, lahatan na [If all these arrive today, we can proclaim all the senators until Wednesday],” Garcia said.
He, however, pointed out that not all these COCs may arrive on Sunday as Lanao del Sur has yet to hold a special election targeted on May 24 after failure of elections was declared in 14 barangays.
“Anytime sa pagtingin namin ay sapat na ‘yung bilang ng mga boto na nakuha ng mga kanididato at hindi na makakaapekto ‘yung mga natitirang result kahit na hindi pa napapadala ang COC, puwede po kaming magkaroon ng proklamasyon kasama ‘yung party-list,” he said.
(We can have the proclamation of senators along with the party-lists anytime we deem that the number of votes obtained by the candidates is sufficient and will not affect the remaining results from the COCs that were not yet sent.)
He also affirmed when asked if the Comelec is targeting to proclaim all the top twelve leading candidates in the senatorial race, saying, “Ayaw po natin na may maiiwan pa dito. Mas maganda na isang proklamasyon na lang. Halimbawa, lahat ng senador tapos magproklama din tayo sa party-lists. It may be possible na hindi lahat ng party-lists ay maproklama kung may matitira pa.”
(We don’t want anyone to be left out. It’s better to just have one proclamation. For example, let’s proclaim all winning senators then the party-lists. It may be possible that not all party-lists will be proclaimed if there will still be left.)
The law provides that a party-list group that gets at least 2% of the total number of votes cast in the party-list race will be entitled to at least one seat in the House of Representatives.
Those who exceed the 2% threshold will be entitled to additional seats proportionate to the number of votes cast, but the total number of seats for each winning party-list group cannot exceed three.
