BAGUIO CITY – The City Board of Canvassers Tuesday proclaimed the winning candidates for the different local elected positions during the May 13, 2019 mid-term elections.
The board composed of City Election officer Atty. Renan Sorbita, City Prosecutor Elmer Manuel Sagsago and City Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Federico Martin initially proclaimed winning congressional candidate Mark Go, neophyte mayoralty candidate retired Police Lt. Gen. Benjamin B. Magalong and vice mayoralty bet and incumbent Councilor Faustino A. Olowan.
On the other hand, the proclaimed candidates for the 12 slots in the city’s local legislative body were incumbent Councilor Joel Alangsab, incumbent Councilor Benny Bomogao, former Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda, incumbent Councilors Elaine Sembrano, Maria Mylen Victoria G. Yaranon, former Councilor Isabelo Cosalan, Jr., incumbent Councilor Francisco Roberto Ortega VI, incumbent Councilor Arthur Alad-iw, school administrator Vladimir Cayabas, former Councilor Fred Bagbagen, incumbent Councilor Lilia Fariñas and former Councilor Philian Louise Weygan-Allan.
For the first time in the history of the local legislative body, 5 women landed in the 12-seat City Council which is empowered to enact ordinances and resolutions governing the welfare of city residents.
The winning candidates were supposed to be proclaimed by the board shortly after midnight Monday but the inability of some precincts to transmit the generated results from their vote counting machines (VCMs) to the centralized canvassing center based at the PFVR Youth Action Center compelled the members to suspend the proceedings and resume the canvassing several hours later.
The board also decided to summon the members of the board of elections inspectors of the precincts that failed to transmit the results from their VCMs for the manual uploading of the results until there was a 100 percent transmission that paved the way for the proclamation of the winning candidates shortly before noon Tuesday.
Among the problems encountered during the casting of votes in the precinct level were the alleged malfunctioning of the designated VCMs with some being immediately replaced, missing names of voters, and poor signal of the telecommunication companies in some areas in the city.
After the proclamation of the winning candidates in the local elected positions, the board subsequently transmitted to the national canvassing center at the Philippine International Convention Center for the canvassing of votes for the 12 slots in the Senate that will be vacated and the party-list organizations to have their representatives in the House.
There were over 165,000 registered voters in the city during the May 13, 2019 with only nearly 70 percent actually casting their votes in the over 257 clustered precincts based in 57 polling centers in the different parts of the city.
The poll body provided some 22 contingency VCMs in the city as back up for VCMs that may malfunction during the course of the casting of votes and the canvassing that followed after the precincts closed operation at around 6 pm Monday.
By DEXTER A. SEE
