BY ELLEN TORDESILLAS
THE Commission on Election Tuesday night issued a resolution that would speed up the proclamation process.
The resolution read by Comelec Chairman Jose Melo states: “The regional directors are authorized to approve requests of the board of canvassers in their respective regions to lower the the canvassing threshold to enable the board of canvassers to proclaim the winning candidates and generate the certificate of canvass for transmission to the next level of canvassing.
“For this purpose the information technology department shall provide all regional elections directors with the usernames and corresponding passwords needed to lower the canvassing threshold and appropriate instructions on how to set the canvassing threshold.”
Melo said the threshold is usually at 100 per cent. Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they did set a new percentage threshold but the board of canvassers can make ito to 93 or 95 percent provided it will not affect the standing of other candidates.
“This is just to declog the traffic down below. Para mabilis na (to speed up the process),” Melo said.
Sarmiento said the resolution has two objectives: It will fast-track the proclamation and facilitate entry of election results from municipal, city board of canvassers to the national board of canvassers.
The resolution came following reports about incidents in the local level that some precincts were not able to finish the voting process due to technical and security concerns. There were also candidates who had posted insurmountable leads but were not proclaimed because the canvassers were still awaiting tallies from one or two precincts.
In Luzon, for example, 20 replacement compact flash cards have yet to be received by the affected precincts, according to Comelec’s technical partner, Smartmatic-TIM Corp.
In Taguig, supporters of Nacionalista Party mayoralty candidate Lani Cayetano claims that with 30 precincts more to go, the congresswoman is ahead of former Justice Tinga by 3,600 votes.
Unofficial returns from the 30 precincts show Tinga winning in those precincts by 800 votes, not enough to overcome Cayetano’s lead, NP sources said.
Cayetano is complaining of the “uncharacteristically slow” pace of canvassing in Taguig.