| Who Won? By Antonio C. Abaya May 19, 2004 It should be obvious by now, except to the most die-hard star-struck FPJ fans, that President Arroyo has won the 2004 presidential elections. The only question left is by how much. Panfilo Lacson was the first to respond to her call for reconciliation, which many interpreted as a tacit admission of her victory, and which to others, the usual suspects who project their own mercenary selves, meant that he had been bribed into making it. Raul Roco was the first, and so far, only rival to formally concede to her, on May 17. Even Eddie Villanueva, who earlier had claimed, without offering an iota of proof, that he had been cheated of ten million votes, stated ever so grudgingly in a paid quarter-page ad in a broadsheet on May 18 that �From initial indications, it appears that I have not received a mandate to lead the country.� From the tallies of Namfrel as of May 20, in which Villanueva is getting only 6.1% of the 15.5 million votes tabulated so far, it appears that that sentence is the Understatement of the Year. Be it ever so humble, there is no grandeur quite like a new Rome�s. The only real and serious challenge comes from the FPJ camp who claim that their idol is leading President Arroyo by a wide margin. In the May 18 issue of Today, a group called People�s Tally and Action Center (PTAC) in Makati claimed that in its tally as of 1:50 pm of May 17, FPJ had received 5,361,721 votes versus GMA�s 4,933,206. As PTAC did not give the votes of Lacson, Villanueva and Roco, it is not possible to say what percentages went to which candidate. PTAC�s main problem is credibility. PTAC is obviously an ad-hoc, in-house FPJ outfit, probably a creation of Mayor Jejomar Binay, FPJ�s campaign manager, and has never done a nationwide quick count before. We are being asked to take its word against that of Namfrel, which is not identified with any political party and which has been doing nationwide quick counts since the 1950s, except during the Marcos kleptocracy. I do not for a moment doubt that cheating has occurred in these elections. They always do in the Philippines, due to cumbersome procedures, inadequate communications and a basic flaw in the national character. And the ten or so cases that have been uncovered so far � in Pangasinan, Lanao, Maguindanao, Batangas, etc � in which FPJ got absolutely zero, or statistically too few, votes show how these instances of obvious fraud can be detected and exposed, so that the perpetrators can be criminally charged and the spurious votes removed from the official tally. In a word, charges of �massive fraud� are credible only when accompanied with details such as precinct number, municipality and province. And this is not really all that difficult; it only requires some detective work and deductive reasoning. As the dominant minority party, the KNP has official copies of all returns from all precincts. And as the quick count arm of the KNP, PTAC presumably has records of which returns from which precincts were entered into their national tally when. So does Namfrel. All the KNP have to do is compare the PTAC records with those of Namfrel, line by line and day by day, and see exactly in which precincts their records diverge. This would be a more fruitful exercise than screaming �Massive fraud!� I have been monitoring the Namfrel and pre-Namfrel quick counts since May 11, always reducing the vote counts to percentages, as this is the only way to keep tab of the results without drowning in a sea of numbers.This also allows me to compare the evolving results with the pre-election surveys of SWS and Pulse Asia as well as with the SWS exit poll. Votes counted (date/time) GMA FPJ Lacson Roco Villa. GMA lead precincts ABS-CBN/Phil Star/STI 1.614m 5/11 (9am) 36.4% 34.9 14.3 6.8 7.6 1.5% Inq7/AMA 1.616m 5/11 (6pm) 34.2 33.4 15.3 8.9 7.9 0.8 Namfrel 772,800 5/12 (6pm) 37.4 40.2 10.2 5.7 6.4 -2.8 1.764m 5/13 (9am) 37.8 37.8 11.9 5.8 6.8 0.0 3.179m (9pm) 40.1 37.1 11.7 5.1 6.1 3.0 3.424m 5/14 (7am) 38.9 37.6 12.2 5.0 6.2 1.3 4.201m (7pm) 38.0 36.9 12.2 6.4 6.5 1.1 4.895m 5/15 (5am) 38 2 37.0 11.9 6.3 6.4 1.2 5.408m (4pm) 39.9 35.7 11.8 6.2 6.3 4.2 17.55% 7.587m 5/16 (5am) 44.9 31.8 11.0 6.0 6.2 13.1 23.93 8.699m (7pm) 45.6 32.0 10.6 5.8 6.1 13.6 27.23 9.261m 5/17 (4am) 45.8 32.2 10.4 5.6 6.0 13.6 29.16 10.077m (10pm) 45.6 32.3 10.6 5.6 6.0 13.3 31.65 10.457m 5/18 (4am) 45.3 32.6 10.6 5.5 6.0 12.7 32.84 12.229m (4pm) 44.9 33.4 10.5 5.3 5.9 11.5 38.58 12.917m 5/19 (2am) 44.7 33.6 10.5 5.3 5.9 11.1 40.62 13.339m (12nn) 44.2 34.1 10.4 5.5 5.9 10.1 42.44 14.015m (6pm) 43.4 34.5 10.6 5.6 6.0 8.9 44.48 15.457m 5/20 (5am) 41.7 35.6 11.0 5.5 6.1 6.1 48.56 SWS exit poll 41 32 9 5 5 8 no ans SWS survey (May 1-4) 37 30 11 6 4 12 undec Pulse Asia surv (Apr 26-29) 37 31 11 7 5 9 undec The above table shows that the contest between GMA and FPJ was very tight until the Namfrel count reached about 5 million votes, on May 15. The surge of votes coming from Central and Western Visayas, known GMA bailiwicks, gave her a 13.6% lead over FPJ. But this lead has been progressively narrowing down, to 6.1% as of May 20, with 15.5 million votes tabulated, but with 51% of the precincts still unheard from, including most of the precincts in 27 provinces and 11 cities. So this election is not over until the Short Lady sings, and she should not sing until the last vote from the last precinct has been tabulated. It looks like GMA will win, but by a smaller margin than the SWS exit poll suggests. The chorus of �Massive cheating!� on the other hand, should also just shut up and should spend their energy more usefully instead by comparing the PTAC and Namfrel entries. As for disenfranchised voters, of which there are said to be 900,000, this is truly sad and can only be blamed on bureaucratic snafus, probably as a result of the shift to electronic, then back to manual, registering and counting. But it affects all candidates, probably in the same proportion as their actual shares of enfranchised voters. My family of five were not able to vote because our names were not in the voters list in the precinct where we had always voted, even though (or because of the fact that) we had had our photos and fingerprints taken for the electronic voters� ID (which we never received). We had previously texted Comelec to see to which precincts we should go, but our names were not in the Comelec master list at all. Our next-door neighbors, husband and wife both PPCRV volunteers, told us, at about 10:30 am of May 10, that some 40 to 50 residents of thoroughly middle-class Merville were not in the voters lists and could not vote. Our neighbors were, on the other hand, surprised and a little nervous that a total stranger was listed down as a resident at their address. In upper-middle-class Horseshoe Village in Quezon City, where I had voted during my bachelor days, the names of my parents (who died in 1985 and 1997) are still in the voters lists, while that of my very-much-alive sister is not. All six of us would have voted for GMA, if only to help prevent another showbiz ignoramus from hijacking the presidency. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the May 29, 2004 issue of the Philippines Free Press magazine. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Who Won?� and Updates Will you please clarify the claim of Neal Cruz of Inquirer that FPJ won in the NCR thus contradicting the exit poll and pre-poll surveys of both SWS and Pulse Asia, In Baguio (and Benguet) where I live GMA won handily with a wide margin over second placer Lacson. Ross Tipon, [email protected] May 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, That was a good article. Too bad you all couldn't vote. They gave me the wrong precinct number, but I eventually found mine and got to vote. I was not sure of whom to vote for president until I sat to actually vote. In the end, I decided that I dreaded an FPJ presidency more than I disliked writing GMA's name. Now that FPJ is raising a fuss, my conscience feels better about voting for her. May our country win the elections! Lolita Delgado Fansler, [email protected] May 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Bravo Tony Bravo! Keep on slugging. Soon we shall see light. Tony Joaquin, [email protected] May 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I am attaching my extrapolation of NAMFREL totals as of May 18 PM, and my analysis of the SWS Exit Poll compared to NAMFREL. Maybe you can help me figure out Region III completely the reverse of SWS Exit Poll. I have been told that Pampanga was entered as a provincial total on the night of May 15th the same could have been done with Cebu votes. What I find strange is no independent information other than NAMFREL shows Gloria with a 3 to 1 lead in Pampanga. Strange? Mano Alcuaz, [email protected] May 20, 2004 MY REPLY. Not strange at all. After all, she IS from Pampanga. It may be true that the Pampanga and Cebu votes were entered simultaneously on May 15, but the early massive lead that that gave her has been whittled down, from 13.6% to 3.90. And it has been holding steady between 3.70 to 3.96 for the past several days, with more than 65% of the precincts accounted for. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww tony -- excellent analysis. reminds me of the one you did on dagdag bawas. Johnny Mercado, Philippine Daily Inquirer May 20, 2004 MY REPLY. Thank you, Johnny. Johnny is referring to a series of articles I wrote in the Philippine Star in the aftermath of the 1995 senatorial elections in which, after analyzing the statistical data from the Comelec and Namfrel, I concluded that Juan Ponce Enrile was the beneficiary of massive fraud in eight provinces, Ramon Mitra in four. Losing senatorial candidate Aquilino Pimentel subsequently filed a complaint with the Electoral Tribunal. The complaint proceedings, in typical Filipino fashion, dragged for more than six years, making the complaint moot and academic after the six-year term (of Enrile) being contested expired. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Let me just say that I thoroughly appreciate the analyses you send me. It helps me a lot in my own (it sometimes seems rapidly deteriorating) thinking.You call it as it is, and do it well. I congratulate you for it.Best regards, Peter L. Wallace, [email protected] May 21, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thanks for the update. Indeed it is a hotly contested election. What worries me is the current culture where local politicians can't accept defeat graciously and arrogance is more dominant that humility. INA KO PO(e)! Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, [email protected] New York May23, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Not interested. It's all bullshit! Give me the survey of the little people and I will believe you. Don't like the opinion of any vested interest. It makes me feel ashamed of my Filipino me for a very lousy and corrupt government under a mediocre economist. Please spare me from a heart attack. You should have more compassion for your people who are being out of their country because of desperation for a government led by crooks who should go to hell. Shame on you guys for tolerating these crooks! But then, of course, only people of the same feather can tolerate these beasts! Yuko in Tokyo, [email protected] May 23, 2004 MY REPLY. Why don�t you do a �survey of the little people� and we will run it here. In that way, you would be lighting a candle, instead of just cursing the darkness. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I would like to see the region by region count by both NAMFREL and COMELEC, giving the number of precints tallied and the number of total precints while comparing the scores of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates PLUS the number of votes counted versus the number of possible votes per region. In this way, we can have a more intelligent understanding of the progress of the count. If the trend shows good performance of a particular candidate, it could just mean that the areas where another candidate is particularly strong may not have been counted as yet. Thanks. Ed David, [email protected] May 24, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, That is great work you have done. Let me give you a tip. The reason whyGMA's percentage jumped dramatically between 4 PM Saturday May 15 and 5 AM Sunday May 16th is because they entered the Pampanga vote as a whole based on NAMFREL Pampanga's provincial tabulation. This is against their normalprocedure which is to centrally receive verify and tabulate the votes. Unfortunately, this gave the impression that GMA was going to win by a mile. It led Roco to concede to GMA instead of saying that he realized he had no chance to win. Many people loudly demanded that FPJ should be a good loser and concede. This would not have happened if NAMFREL did not just release numbers. They should state where the bulk of the incremental votes came from. Or make the regional totals more readily available. Only discovered last. Thursday night that the Bulletin publishes regional totals. It could also have been fortunate that everyone thought GMA was winning by mile. Maybe GMA's camp could have aborted Plan B - Massive cheating on COC's. A little later I will send you may extrapolation of NAMFREL's 10 AM May 22 count. Mano Alcuaz, [email protected] May 24, 2004 MY REPLY. But before you do, you should first give us your proof of �massive cheating.� Precinct number, municipality and province, plus votes tabulated versus votes as they should have been, and your proof that your count of votes is the right one. Otherwise, you are just another in a chorus of many screaming the same thing, without any proof to back up your scream. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
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