'Solid North' votes push Marcos past Robredo after 2nd day of official VP tally

Boosted by votes from the so-called "Solid North," Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. snatched the lead from rival Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo in the tight race for the vice presidency based on the official tally released by the National Board of Canvassers on Thursday evening.

At the end of the day's tally at 9:46 p.m., Marcos enjoys a slim lead of 83,480 votes as he received 13,214,810 votes as against Robredo's 13,131,330 votes.

They were followed by Senators Alan Peter Cayetano (5,546,631 votes), Francis Escudero (4,639,594), Antonio Trillanes IV (794,814) and Gregorio Honasan II (695,593).

At one point, Marcos led by over two million votes when the election results from provinces in Northern Luzon and some cities in Metro Manila were tallied by the NBOC.

But Robredo started to slowly chip away at Marcos' lead after the votes from the Visayas came in. 

Marcos leaned on the support of voters from La Union, Isabela, Cagayan, Mountain Province, Pangasinan, Kalinga, Ifugao, Abra, Nueva Vizcaya, and his home province of Ilocos Norte, where he beat Robredo by more than 290,000 votes.

He also topped the overseas absentee voting in Japan and Saudi Arabia and took Aurora, Quezon City, Makati City, Caloocan City, Nueva Ecija, Cavite, and Pampanga, whose governor, Lilia Pineda, actively campaigned for Robredo.

Robredo got huge support from her home province, Camarines Sur, where she won over Marcos by more than 600,000 votes.

Visayas provinces delivered for Robredo such as vote-rich Cebu and Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Iloilo province, Southern Leyte, and Bohol as well as Bukidnon, Basilan, and Zamboanga Sibugay in Mindanao.

In the presidential race, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte pulled ahead of rivals with 15,140,495 votes.

Following him are former interior secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas II (9,057,359), Senator Grace Poe (8,697,378), Vice President Jejomar Binay (4,971,584), Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago (1,398,278) and the late OFW Family party-list Rep. Roy Señeres (23,630).

68.48 percent processed

The NBOC has already processed 68.48 percent or 113 out of 165 certificates of canvass from across the country and overseas.

The congressional body has so far accounted for 39,288,724 votes for president and 38,022,772 votes for vice president. 

The second day of canvassing didn't go without glitches as certificates of canvass from four areas — Antique, Kuwait, Iloilo City, and Canada — were not processed.

Marcos' camp found a discrepancy between the physically delivered and the electronically transmitted results in Antique.

The hard copy of Kuwait's COC got bogged down at the Bureau of Customs while the COC from Canada has yet to be delivered to Congress.

Votes from Iloilo City, a known bailiwick of Robredo, have yet to be counted because no COC was found in the ballot box.

COCs processed

After a one-day delay, election results in Laguna, Ilocos Sur and Davao del Norte were processed by the NBOC since the discrepancies in the COCs were adequately explained by representatives of the Commission on Elections.

Laguna provincial election supervisor Gloria Ramos Petallo attributed the error to the transmission of the results from the pre-logic and accuracy tests (pre-LAT) conducted on the vote counting machines before the May 9 polls.

Ilocos Sur provincial election supervisor Rhodora Arocena said the discrepancy in the COCs were due to the non-inclusion of votes from the municipality of San Ildefonso during the first transmission made on May 10.

Davao del Norte provincial election supervisor Jennifer Ancla said the first transmission made on May 10 failed to include the votes from the municipality of Asuncion.

Canvassing of votes will resume on Friday at 2 p.m. at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City. —JST, GMA News