Bets' proclamation may be delayed even though elections were quick

Jose Melo was in a good mood on Monday. After encountering glitches and delays while preparing for the Philippines’ first nationwide automated elections, the chair of the Commission on Elections cracked a joke, hours after poll centers closed. "The exercise [of voting] was faster than you can say Garci," Melo quipped, referring to the nickname of poll commissioner Virgilio Garcillano who was linked to an alleged plot to rig presidential election results in the 2004 elections. "For the first time, proclamations have already been made in some provinces," Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer added. Some areas have already proclaimed winners in various posts hours after the close of polls. "If I may admit, way back then the practice was to proclaim winners even without complete election results if only to avoid protests. But here under the system, there can be no proclamation unless there is a hundred percent count," Melo said. But he’s not speaking too soon. Melo still admitted that the canvassing might delay the proclamation of candidates. The National Board of Canvassers earlier convened and unlocked the Consolidated Canvassing System (CCS), but declared a recess until later in the afternoon due to some queries from representatives of political parties and candidates. "Proceedings might be delayed.. but [we will continue] to update you with results as they come," Melo said. The poll body has received almost 79 percent of the official results this morning, and would be releasing the results later in the day, Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said. Poll body officials added that results of the Random Manual Audit (RMA), which would be held in 1,145 precincts nationwide, were not yet available. "There was no report yet from the field. In the [National Capital Region], we have not received complete reports yet.. so far they are accurate but we cannot announce it yet because we are waiting for [its completion]," Commissioner Lucenito Tagle said. Tagle, however, did not specify the permissible margin of error between Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS)-generated results and the RMA. "We will come to that later.. once we see the reports," Tagle said. As of posting time, RMA is ongoing in precincts nationwide. The poll body said they expect to reach 10 percent of RMA results within the day. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV