Bongbong camp wants unofficial vote count stopped

The camp of vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday called on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) to terminate the ongoing partial and unofficial counting of votes.

In a statement, Marcos’ campaign adviser, ABAKADA party-list Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz, described the ongoing partial and unofficial counting of votes as “alarming and suspicious” and was marred with glitch.

“It is unfortunate that while the whole country was asleep, the glitch in the canvassing occurred and from then on we saw a progression of so-called “updates” that showed an alarming and suspicious trend reducing our lead contrary to the results of independent exit polls and our own internal surveys,” Dela Cruz said.

Dela Cruz said they have already sent a request to the Comelec and the PPCRV to immediately terminate the unofficial counting, which was already 91.92 percent complete as of 2:30 p.m.

“In the past, the unofficial count was designed not to be completed to avoid the possibility of confusion and conflict with the official one. There is no reason for this not to be the norm this time around,” Dela Cruz said.

As of posting time, GMA News Online was still trying to reach the Comelec and the PPCRV for their comments.

'Victorious'

In the same statement, Dela Cruz said that while their camp remain confident that Marcos will emerge victorious when all the votes are counted, the unofficial quick count should not be completed so as to give primacy to the official canvassing of votes for the presidential and vice-presidential posts to be conducted by National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) later this month.

“Thus, although we are certain that if the unofficial count continues we will emerge victorious, we do not want the official canvass to be conducted by the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) pre-empted by the unofficial count,” Dela Cruz said.

In a separate statement sent to reporters earlier in the day, Dela Cruz said that based on their own internal survey, Marcos will lead against Robredo by more than three percentage points.

“Our internal survey is quite reflective of the Social Weather Survey exit polls which showed that Sen. Marcos led the vice presidential survey with 34.9 percent as against Rep. Leni Robredo's 32.5 percent,” Dela Cruz said.

Marcos had been leading the partial and unofficial results of the vice presidential race from the transparency server of the Comelec since Monday night.

But Robredo overtook him early Tuesday.

As of 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Robredo garnered 13,519,046 votes while Marcos had 13,327,023 votes.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano came at far third place with 5,524,017 votes followed by Sen. Francis Escudero with 4,649,799 votes.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV was lagging behind at 5th place with 810,278 votes, followed by Sen. Gringo Honasan at 6th and last place with 730,477 votes.

Escudero and Trillanes have already conceded in the race though there is no clear winner yet. — RSJ, GMA News