By URIEL C. QUILINGUING
Contributing editor
with NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent .
ALTHOUGH candidates of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) clearly dominated Monday’s elections for 20 contested posts in Cagayan de Oro, proclamation of winners have to wait.
Lawyer Ramil Acol, city elections officer and chair of the board of canvassers, said a 90-percent threshold must be reached so proclamation of winners can proceed.
Acol said the BOD, which convened at the session hall of the city council Monday evening, has canvassed 76.68 percent of the election returns so far, and he doubted if the trend would change.
But he said the canvassing of election returns and eventual proclamation cannot proceed unless 14 “defective” secure digital (SD) cards for the automated vote-counting machines (VCM) have already been reconfigured to enable the electronic transmission of election returns.
The 14 SDs came from the polling centers in barangays Bugo, Dansolihon, Pagatpat, Puerto and San Simon where transmission failures of election returns were reported.
Members of the board of electors brought the vote-counting machines, used and unused official ballots and other election paraphernalia from these barangays Monday night to the city council session hall for safekeeping.
Acol said that as of 11 am yesterday, only two of the 14 SD cards have been reconfigured by information technology experts at the Department of Science and Technology’s regional office. At 2:44 pm, the reconfiguration of two more SD cards were completed. The remaining 10 are still being reconfigured at presstime.
“Let’s hope they can reconfigure all by tomorrow,” Acol said.
In one interview, he said they were doing their best to finish their work before midnight yesterday. In another interview later in the afternoon, he said he doubted if it can be done yesterday.
He said defective SD memory cards were also reported in Misamis Oriental and elsewhere in the region and these have to be reconfigured at the DOST-10.
The 76.68 percent, he said, is a “rough and contestable estimate” due to the legal counsels of political parties and candidates who are observing the proceedings of the BOC who may come up with other figures.
Cagayan de Oro has 345,358 registered voters and 237,444 actually voted Monday in 401 precincts.
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