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The PPCRV-KBP unofficial election count as of 5:50 pm shows Rodrigo Duterte leading with 1,311,236 votes. Grace Poe is second with 757,055 votes, with Mar Roxas following closely with 748,482 votes. Jejomar Binay is fourth with 457,575 votes. Trailing behind is Mirim Defensor Santiago with 149,973 votes, along with the late Roy Seneres with 1,923

By YVETTE MORALES DESPITE three major election-related incidents (ERIs) and a number of election violations, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines said today’s elections have so far been “generally peaceful.” The number of ERIs are far less compared to the 92,000 clustered precincts, PNP Spokesperson Police Chief Supt. Wilben

By VERA FILES HALFWAY into the day of Monday’s elections, problems among voters with disabilities have been piling up from across the country. Initial reports as of noon show many persons with disabilities (PWDs) having a hard time exercising their right to vote, betraying a lack of preparation by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), despite

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL VOTING may be extended in areas where vote-counting machines (VCMs) have caused delays, Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesperson James Jimenez said Monday. Comelec has been receiving numerous reports of rejected ballots since voting opened. Ballots are considered rejected if they are not accepted by the VCM after four attempts, said Jimenez. In case

By ELLEN T.TORDESILLAS IF the pre-election surveys are confirmed by Election Day votes, then it would be Rodrigo Duterte as president and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. as vice president. It would be slap in the face of President Aquino who refuses to see that the Filipino people’s attraction to the tough- talking Duterte is an

Text by: EMMANUEL CAGAYAN Video by: AMIEL CAGAYAN TACURONG CITY – The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) reminded its volunteers of their role to secure the vote of Filipinos today. Over 300 volunteers attended the final briefing at the Nuestra Sra. dela Candelaria Parish on Saturday. The volunteers will be deployed in 24 polling

By FROILAN GALLARDO, MindaNews MARAWI City — Fearing for their lives, 200 teachers from five municipalities in Lanao del Sur are boycotting their poll duty on Monday, prompting the Commission on Elections to deploy policemen to replace them. Senior Insp. Barlowe Espiga said they are fielding 200 policemen to replace the teachers who will not

By FREDERIC LORENZO UPI, Maguindanao – Sixty-year-old Herminio Lacave will walk two kilometers to cast his vote tomorrow. Born with a smaller left leg, Lacave calls on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to make it easy for persons with disabilities (PWDs) to vote. “Bilang isang PWD, nanawagan ako sa Comelec na bigyan kami ng isang

  Second of two parts (See Part 1: Like Arroyo, Aquino gov’t releases billions to LGUs before elections) ALCALA, Pangasinan — At the end of the newly opened section of the Tarlac-Pangasinan La Union Expressway, the one that exits at Rosales town, is a huge monstrosity of a structure, appearing empty and abandoned. It is supposed

First of two parts THE Aquino government has distributed some P10 billion pesos to select local government units mostly in Northern Luzon on the eve of the 2016 elections, repeating a practice employed by the Arroyo administration which President Aquino has repeatedly called a corrupt government. The funds represent the LGUs’ share from excise taxes

ON May 9, persons with disabilities (PWDs), senior citizens and heavily pregnant women may choose to vote in emergency accessible polling places (EAPPs) in case their precinct is located on the higher floors of voting centers. EAPPs are makeshift tents located at the ground floor of multi-level voting centers, intended to make the voting process easier

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL THE Commission on Elections has unveiled a new plan to make voting more accessible for persons with disabilities (PWDs) and senior citizens: emergency accessible polling places (EAPPs) in the form of makeshift tents. This after the poll body has canceled voting in malls due to practical and legal restrictions. (See Disability

By YANG AMING Podcast By BABYLYN KANO-OMAR BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi — Ten of the 11 island municipalities here appear set for the presidential elections Monday, save for Mapun, where vote-counting machines (VCMs) are yet to be tested. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday tested 81 machines in the capital Bongao, and found only one did not print

By FROILAN GALLARDO, MindaNews MADALUM, Lanao del Sur — Locking their arms and using their sandals to hit the soldiers on their heads, female supporters of a mayoral candidate here thwarted attempts by the Commission on Elections to bring the vote counting machines (VCM) from the covered gym in front of the fire station to the

  By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL HIS exposés on Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s supposed hidden wealth and wrongdoings as chief executive of Davao City might seem to have come too late as the presidential derby enters its homestretch. “Pero hindi po ako nagkulang (But I have done my part,)” said Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV who himself is running for

By VERLIE Q. RETULIN FIRST it was mall voting. Now it’s voter verification through headphones for people who have trouble seeing that won’t see the light of day on May 9. The Commission on Elections confirmed Thursday, four days before the election, that the headphones connected to vote-counting machines (VCM) will no longer be used by

  By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL ELECTION inspectors will now know whether or not to issue replacement ballots to voters whose ballots would be rejected by vote-counting machines (VCMs). Provided, it is not the voter’s fault. Five days before polls, the Commission on Elections amended its rules on rejected ballots to include contingency procedures through Resolution

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL PRESIDENTIAL race frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte, already facing a plunder case filed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes, has been slapped with yet another complaint, this time by disabillity groups and advocates. Disability advocates Ranilo Sorongon and Liza Martinez charged the Davao City mayor before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Friday with violating the

  THE  National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) has expressed grave concern over the increasing harassment of journalists who are covering the election campaign and asked the candidates to call for calm among their supporters. NUJP chair Ryan D. Rosauro said the NUJP, in its monitoring of the plight of journalists in the campaign trail,

  BY ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS AS the official who supervised the first automated national elections in 2010, former Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal wants the elections on Monday to succeed. That means for it to be accepted by the Filipino people as honest and credible. But there are a number of things that the current Comelec

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL WHEN polling places open on May 9, none of them would be in malls, as had been planned and hailed months before the elections.   On April 27, poll chief Andres Bautista announced that mall voting, a pilot project of his administration, will no longer push through. “I personally worked on

ASK all five presidential candidates about their plans for children and most of them would touch on providing classrooms and free lunch for undernourished kids. When it comes to transport issues, they would often discuss the worsening traffic problem in urban areas and their plans to solve it. This election season, road safety was almost

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL FIVE days before Election Day, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) still do not have instructions how to test the integrity of the vote counting machines that will be used on May 9. In a lthree-page letter to Comelec, former Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Y. Larrazabal, who supervised the first automated national

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS FIVE days before Election Day, former Comelec Commissioner  Gregorio Larrazabal, who supervised the first automated elections in 2010 and is now consultant of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, said there are a  still lot of loose ends that need to be tied to make Monday’s election orderly. He is very concerned with

By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL Photos and video by LUIS LIWANAG [metaslider id=35085] WAS it a test of honor? Whose? Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, armed with an affidavit, arrived at the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Julia Vargas Branch Monday. The affidavit was the vice presidential candidate’s answer to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s challenge:

By TESS BACALLA MARILYN Sakiwat, 55, looked forward to coming home to the Philippines for good after years of working overseas, making up for lost time with her now grown-up children, and becoming a productive member of her community. This, after 26 years of toiling away in Hong Kong, hundreds of miles away from her simple

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS IF you have to resort to lies in a conflict, it only indicates that you are not on the side of truth. It’s becoming obvious that the expose of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV of Davao City Mayor Duterte’s  bank transactions that can go up to as much as P2.4 billion has

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS MARCH 14, 2016 – Presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte and his running mate Alan Peter Cayetano signed a manifesto waiving their rights under the Bank Secrecy law. In the manifesto, printed on a large piece of cardboard, they pledged “to open all our bank accounts in local and foreign currencies both here

WITH social media’s wide array of possibilities, netizens have seized the opportunity to make fun of presidential and other candidates by creating impersonation accounts using the candidate's image, paired with a convincing handle.

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS A member of the influential Iglesia ni Cristo said the church leadership has called vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr, to tell him that he is their choice for the number two position for the May 9 elections. “Pinatawag siya (he was asked to come),” the source said. That is