Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay continued to lead the race in Wednesday's congressional canvassing of votes cast for president and vice president in the recently concluded automated elections. But while Aquino enjoyed a four-million lead over his closest rival, former President Joseph Estrada, Binay’s lead over Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas II was less than 200,000 votes based on the 207 certificates of canvass (COCs) that were canvassed as of 9:13 p.m. Aquino received 11,460,226 votes while Estrada trailed with 7,391,416. Binay, meanwhile, got 10,916,224 votes and was closely followed by Roxas with 10,745,422. Out of the 71 COCs that have yet to be canvassed, 41 are from Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) while 30 are local COCs.
Based on partial NBOC canvassing as of 9:13 p.m., June 2, with 207 of 278 certificates of canvass (CoCs).
A total of 214 COCs have already been opened since the actual canvassing started Thursday last week, but the canvassing of seven was deferred due to discrepancies and lack of supporting documents.
Proclamation moved to Tuesday Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said the proclamation of the winners could be on Tuesday afternoon as the national board of canvassers (NBOC) still has to consolidate the data gathered during the canvassing and draft a committee report that will be presented to Congress. Zubiri had earlier said that the winners could be proclaimed by Monday. During Wednesday's nearly six-hour canvassing, Roxas’s camp continued to cry foul over the non-inclusion of 2.6 million nullified votes, which they said was an "alarming" number. "If indeed there was a technical glitch in how the machines had properly read the null votes — whether these are indeed over-votes or under-votes — it could be a disenfranchisement of about 5 percent of the entire voting population," said Roxas’ lawyer Roland Solis.
Protesting a non-issue Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, Binay's legal counsel, said Roxas’ camp was protesting a “non-issue." "A non-issue when repeated a thousand times might mislead the audience," he said.
Based on partial NBOC canvassing as of 9:13 p.m., June 2, with 207 of 278 certificates of canvass (CoCs).
Pimentel said millions of votes were automatically considered null because of the voter’s abstention or error in voting. “It is a right of a person not to vote." He said even in manual elections, a voter is allowed to vote for only one president and vice president; otherwise, his or her vote for those positions would be considered invalid. A voter can also choose not to pick a candidate for those positions at all. The Comelec has said
manually counting nullified votes was useless.
Adaza vs NBOC While the legal counsels of candidates fought over the votes being canvassed, the lawyer of presidential aspirant Senator Jamby Madrigal sang a different tune — he told the joint congressional committee that it should not be canvassing the votes at all.
According to lawyer Homobono Adaza, it was unconstitutional for the panel to canvass the votes for president and vice president. He said the 18-man joint congressional panel conducting the canvassing could only count the votes individually and not canvass the COCs. But Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senator Joker Arroyo countered Adaza, saying Congress could create its own rules and the NBOC was tasked to conduct the canvass. The panel will resume their canvassing of COCs Thursday. They will adjourn sine die Friday. The House on Friday will take up legislative matters such as the House's ratification of the Freedom of Information bill.
- KBK, GMANews.TV 
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