By CHERYLL D. FIEL
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY – The proclamation of winners was stalled here on May 11, pending the arrival of results from the remaining seven polling clusters in the districts of Paquibato, Tugbok and Agdao.
But as of 6 pm on May 12, while still awaiting the election results from the last seven cluster of precincts, the City Board of Canvassers proclaimed Sara Duterte as the new Davao City mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, as vice mayor, Karlo Nograles as the winning representative in the first district, Mylene Garcia in the second district and Isidro Ungab in the third district.
The City Board of Canvassers lowered the threshold of votes necessary for the winning candidates to be proclaimed winners. The Board proclaimed the winners five hours after it resumed counting of votes on Wednesday, May 12.
Cullo said the Comelec will resume the counting of votes from barangay Tapak, sitio (subvillages) Labo and Butay in Paquibato District, Biao in Guianga, Tugbok District and San Juan in Agdao, still being awaited in the previous night.
The progress of canvassing had reached 98 percent in the city when it was snagged by problems over the defective flashcard coming from Mapula, Paquibato, among others.
Teachers from Mapula in Paquibato confer with the CCS laptop operator on the status of the compact flash card in their precinct cluster. (davaotoday.com photo by Jose Hernani)
The flash card from Mapula failed to function when entered into the Precinct Count Optical Scanning (PCOS) at the SP session hall canvassing area.
The teachers brought the flashcard by hand to the City Board of Canvassers all the way from Mapula, a farflung village in the city.
Canvassing officers suspected that the flash card might have been destroyed when the electricity went out in Mapula area earlier in the day.
But the PCOS machine counter said that files in the primary card and the back up did not match.
PDP-Laban and Liberal Party Lawyer Martin Delgra interjected a proposal made by the Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS) laptop operator Arnel Rodriguez to declare a two-hour recess to fix the flashcard from Mapula.
Rodriguez had told the election canvassers during the floor deliberation that to fix the flashcard, “it must be replaced with a preconfigured card,” and the only person who could do it was the IT personnel based in Digos, Davao del Sur.
“What about the back-up system of the PCOS machine?” Delgra asked. “Maybe we can check it first,” he told Rodriguez.
