Senator Benigno Aquino III would be proclaimed president of the Philippines on Wednesday after Congress on Tuesday finally declared the winners of the presidential and vice presidential elections almost a month after Filipinos went to the polls last May 10. Congress also declared Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay as vice president-elect in a closely fought contest with Aquino's running mate, Senator Manuel Roxas II. Binay was the running mate of former president Joseph Estrada who was placed second to Aquino in the final official tally of votes. The final official tally showed Aquino garnering 15,208,678 votes, winning by 5,720,841 million votes over Estrada who received 9,487,837 votes. On the other hand, Binay garnered 14,645,574 votes, winning by just 727,084 votes over Roxas who collected 13,918,490 votes. Roxas immediately announced that he has started the process of formally filing an election protest, saying he has asked his lawyers to gather records and evidence to show that he was a victim of poll fraud. His lawyers earlier called for an expanded random manual audit of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that were used in the first automated elections in the Philippines after noting a high number of “null votes” in almost every certificate of canvass (CoC) canvassed by Congress. Roxas' lawyer Joey Tenefrancia said as much as 2.6 million votes for the vice-presidency alone were considered by the PCOS machines as “null votes.” Null votes refer to votes not counted by the automated polling machines either for improper shading, or undervoting or overvoting for a specific position. Despite his planned electoral protest, Roxas said he was happy with the “clear and overwhelming” victory of Aquino, his Liberal Party's standard-bearer. “I congratulate our standard-bearer, president-elect Noynoy Aquino. There is no doubt to his victory. From day one, the success of his campaign has been as important to me as the success of my own. It's my honor to be part of his triumphant, honest, and clean campaign,” he said partly in Filipino. Last June 2, when Congress suspended canvassing, Binay led by just 120,000 votes over Roxas. However, votes from some of the provinces and cities canvassed in the last days boosted Binay's lead. Earlier on, Binay's camp said they expected to win with a 930,000 margin, stressing that the mayor won in 14 of the Philippines' 17 regions. Binay's aides accused the Roxas camp of trying to condition the minds of the people into thinking that Binay cheated. However, Roxas lawyer Tenefrancia said they have valid reasons to doubt the results in some provinces. Meanwhile, the final election tally showed some interesting data. The final vote tabulation showed that Aquino winning by 884 votes against Estrada even in the latter's hometown of San Juan City, where Estrada served as mayor for more than 20 years. Aquino collected 22,225 votes against Estrada's 21,341 in San Juan. In Cebu, a bailiwick of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino won with 759,938 votes despite the expressed support of the powerful Garcia family to Nacionalista Party standard bearer Manuel Villar. Arroyo administration standard bearer Gilberto Teodoro Jr. finished second place in Cebu with 344,783 votes while Villar only placed third with 200,287 votes. Cebu is the Philippines' biggest voting province with 2.2 million registered voters.
