That was the purpose of what Uniffors calls the dog-and-pony show of Tonypet Albano and Romeo Macalintal. Reason? See the Reuters report on exit polls suggest the administration did worse than expected in the senate race. The much-awaited Pulse Asia exit polls will be released this evening, but the results for the National Capitol Region have been released: it’s 9 GO -1 TU-2 Indep. in the NCR. Survey places voter participation at 60.9% (see my entry in Inquirer Current on voter turnout), and comments from foreign observers have forced Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos to acknowledge there was “some” voter disenfranchisement. Even Palace booster Tony Lopez has harsh words for Abalos (that has to mean things are pretty bad: oh well, some hatchet jobs are too obvious and too crude).
The Palace is unhappy about quick counts, too, saying Namfrel should hurry up. Called for its comments, Namfrel replied the media quick count results aren’t very different from its own. The Palace says the surveys and quick count results are biased for Metro Manila (sauce for the goose… so much for their claims in 2004!); one media quick count organizer pointed out their data’s been coming from outside Manila.
No Namfrel website worth mentioning: it would have been very useful if every provincial chapter posted its results online. So far, all that’s available are the numbers for Namfrel Zamboanga (updated every 6 minutes). But the Zamboanga Namfrel results don’t seem very different from the general national results in the quick counts (GO by a big lead). DYAB Cebu has initial quick count results for Cebu (media colleague in Cebu, when I asked him what the results are for quick counts, said “of those I’ve heard in radio or submitted from the field I’m getting the impression many opposition candidates are doing well, particularly Chiz”). See the Visayan Daily Star report on initial senate results in Negros Occidental (various quick counts all have GO leading). I got a text message from a reader in Mindanao with these Namfrel results for Kidapawan City and for Cotobato as of 6:20 AM and 10:00 AM respectively (Cotobato figures in parenthesis):
Angara 3,005 (18,552)
Aquino 5,071 (24,372)
Arroyo 2486 (14,763)
Cayetano 4,235 (24,553)
Costeteng 2,009 (13,233)
Defensor 2,270 (15,289)
Escudero 5,979 (30,864)
Gomez 445
Honasan 4,154 (28,383)
Kiram 368
Lacson 5,938 (31,868)
Legarda 5,852 (31,677)
Magsaysay 1,357 (9,826)
Montano 1,690 (15,319)
Oreta 714 (9,303)
Osmena 3,109 (18,360)
Pangilinan 4,923 (24,218)
Pichay 1,828 (15,051)
Pimentel 4,152 (21,868)
Recto 2,459 (15,246)
Roco 2,455 (14,647)
Singson 473 (6,842)
Sotto 1,291(11,301)
Trillanes 4,662 (26,270)
Villar 4,929 (24,372)
Zubiri 3,295 (19,365)
You can compare the AMA Quick Count and Namfrel figures handily. The strong peso and stock market for the first business day after elections, seems to indicate a big sigh of relief: win or lose, we’re used to elections. Update: Ace Durano has come out on TV moderating the expectations of Team Unity, the best they can do, he now says, is a showing of 6 to 8…
As Blackshama’s blog points out, elections are a statistician’s wet dream -and worst nightmare. And there will be a lot of wrangling over the numbers once the Pulse Asia exit poll establishes a benchmark, so to speak. Many institutions, from Namfrel to the survey firms, are out to redeem their reputations this year, after the mess that was 2004. The news and reports from the public has only begun to roll in.
But for now, I’d like to pay tribute to the people to whom we owe big every election year: the school teachers, the electoral watchdog volunteers, the government workers at home and abroad who faithfully and conscientiously did their work, the reporters and camera crews, and the public that did its civic duty.
These pictures I took of the initial hours of the canvassing in the precinct in which I vote, tell only a small portion of the story. The teachers and watchers were there hours before the polls opened -and, according to the news, only finished their work around 1:30 am. I can only hope they got their allowances unlike other teachers in other parts of the country.
Local races: see the Sun Star Network Online coverage for provincial updates. Garci concedes; while Pacquiao is trailing -and won’t concede until every last vote is counted.
Technorati Tags: elections, philippines, politics, Senate, surveys
Trillanes is fourth on that list. FOURTH! He’s even beating Kiko Pangilinan.
Assuming effects of cheating don’t pollute the data, from the rankings coming from different parts of the country, it will be interesting to find out whether the class-divide trumps the rural-urban divide or vice-versa, (or whether such demarcations are even applicable).
it’s 1-9-2 for GO as far as Zamboanga is concerned.Angara is only TU bet in and he’s only at #11.
1 Escudero, Francis Joseph G. – Chiz 29,082
2 Legarda, Loren B. – Loren 28,712
3 Lacson, Panfilo M. – Ping 28,115
4 Aquino, Benigno Simeon – Noynoy 26,247
5 Villar, Manuel B. – Manny 25,595
6 Trillanes, Antonio F. – Magdalo 24,487
7 Pangilinan, Francis N. – Kiko 24,421
8 Cayetano, Allan Peter – Compañero 23,503
9 Honasan, Gregorio B. – Gringo 22,834
10 Pimentel, Aquilino L. – Koko 22,296
11 Angara, Edgardo J. – Ed 16,363
12 Osmeña, John Henry R. – Sonny 15,609
I thought that the tally by now will show Roco commanding a lead over Trillanes.
Can’t blame jimenez’s frustration. Thing is, everybody knows what brought on this credibility problem: hello garci. well maybe not everybody. I bet bencard doesn’t know that.
Election results show that an Arroyo endorsement would be a kiss of death particularly to candidates without a genuine track record to speak of. the real reason for Lkas or Kampi running unopposed is the lack of strong political parties in many areas because Malacañang has managed to hold hostage incumbents, or else. Many alliances were also destroyed by the so-called transactional leadership of the President. I hope that the enthusiasm, vigilance and critical thinking of the youth as shown by the results would flourish to redem the nation from the shame it finds itself in these times.
COMELEC spokeperson james jimenez in his phone interview on Magandang Umaga Pilipinas today seemed to all but accuse the media of having a plan to condition the minds of the electorate to the opposition win by presenting the results of the media count (whose data, of course, is from the raw data at the precinct level). he pretty much confirmed that the precinct level data is raw and that to be “official” the data has to be “processed” through the lawyers of the candidates.
strange that we’re not supposed to look at raw data.
Namfrel is so reliable that for a period back there, they reported La Union numbers as Maguindanao numbers. Yeba!!!!
Manolo, it’s CoTAbato (as in kutang bato) and NOT CoTObato (as in kutong bato). 🙂