Bong Go, Bam, Bato, Erwin Tulfo lead senatorial race

Senator Christopher "Bong" Go, former Senator Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV, Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, and ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Erwin Tulfo are leading the senatorial race, according to the partial and unofficial tally from the Commission on Elections.

As of 6:42 a.m. Tuesday, Go is leading the way with 21,749,393 votes while Aquino is second with 16,805,238. Dela Rosa is third with 16,654,763 and Tulfo is fourth with 13,792,587.

Former Senator Francis Pangilinan is fifth with 12,285,897 votes and Sagip party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta is sixth with 12,209,871.

The rest of the top 12 are as follows:

• Panfilo Lacson 12,124,909
• Vicente “Tito” Sotto III 11,917,625
• Pia Cayetano 11,693,853
• Camille Villar 11,006,404
• Lito Lapid 10,803,168
• Imee Marcos 10,706,116

Go said he and other allies of the Duterte family were at a disadvantage in this midterm election.

“Sa totoo lang po, mahirap po. Iba yung sitwasyon namin nung 2019 na administration. Ito sariling sikap kami, wala kaming entablado. Kami-kami mismo ang nagtutulungan sa motorcade, entablado, para sa aming sorties,” Go told GMA Integrated News.

(To be honest, this was challenging for us. Our situation was different during the administration in 2019. We worked on our own, we don’t have a stage. We are the ones helping each other in our motorcades and stages in our sorties.)

“Ito, napaka-challenging sa akin ng kampanyang ito, ito ang pinakamahirap. Sariling kayod talaga ito. Pero sipag lang talaga po. Napaka-importante ang sinseridad sa serbisyo, with all sincerity and humility.”

(This campaign is very challenging for me, this is the most difficult. It is really my own work. But you just need hard work. Sincerity in service is very important, with all sincerity and humility.)

Aquino said Kiko-Bam tandem’s election performance was due to the overwhelming support from young voters.

“Very unexpected po ito. This morning napakiramdaman po namin makakapasok kami, pero siyempre hindi ganito kataas,” he told GMA Integrated News.

(This is unexpected. We actually got a hunch this morning that we could make it but we did not expect to rank this high.)

“Kaya nagpapasalamat kami sa lahat ng mga tumulong, lahat ng mga volunteers, especially yung mga kabataan. Tingin ho namin yung mga kabataan talaga yung nagdala sa amin ni Sen. Kiko sa winning circle,” Aquino added.

(We are so thankful to everyone who helped, to all the volunteers, especially the youth. We think that it was the youth who helped us Senator Kiko make it to the winning circle.)

Pangilinan said he thought that news of his placing fifth in the senatorial tally was "fake news."

"Our team has a Telegram thread, doon ko nakita na nasa top five na nga. Akala ko fake news. Sa dinami dami na fake news na natatangap ko araw-araw sa kampanya, ang sabi ko, 'Totoo ba ito? Baka disinformation ito,' totoo pala," Pangilinan said in an interview Monday night.

(Our team has a Telegram thread and it was there that I saw that I was in the top five. I thought it was fake news. Because of all the fake news I had to deal with during the campaign, I said, 'Is this true? This might be disinformation.' I realized it was for real.)  –NB/RSJ/VBL, GMA Integrated News

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