Comelec canvasses 13 of 175 COCs – Laudiangco
Commission on Elections. INQUIRER FILES
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has officially received and included 13 out of 175 certificates of canvass (COCs) in its partial and official tally for the 2025 midterm elections, Comelec spokesperson Director John Rex Laudiangco said on Tuesday.
In an ambush interview during a break in the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) session held at the Manila Hotel’s tent city, Laudiangco said that Comelec expects more COCs to enter when the session resumes at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
“I think some other COCs will be canvassed because while we are on a break, there are COCs coming in, and we expect that many COCs will enter. About how many were canvassed already, I cannot say for sure, it depends,” he said in Filipino.
Earlier, Laudiangco explained that the COCs are official tallies of votes coming from provinces, highly urbanized cities, local absentee voting (LAV), and overseas absentee voting (OAV).
Of the 175 COCs expected for the 2025 midterm elections, 82 will come from provinces, 64 from OAV, 26 from highly urbanized cities, two from the district board of canvassers (DBOC), and one from the LAV.
According to Laudiangco, COCs from provinces are aggregated totals from municipalities and cities within it, while tallies from highly urbanized cities — or cities that do not vote for a governor — go straight to the Comelec.
The DBOC, meanwhile, refers to Taguig-Pateros district and 64 barangays that were separated from North Cotabato.
When a COC is canvassed by the NBOC, it becomes part of the partial and official count, which will be used to determine winners in the senatorial and party-list races.
“What are the 175 COCs? Of course, that includes local absentee voting, 82 provinces, and two districts. What are the two districts? Taguig-Pateros, Special Geographic Area, or the 63 that were turned into eight municipalities, and then overseas voting; if you remember, we had 93 posts. These 93 posts were organized into 64 Overseas Ports of Canvassers,” Laudiango said in Filipino.
“So the question is why this few? Because this is what happens: We do not canvass election returns. The election returns are canvassed by municipalities and cities, regardless of whether they are highly urbanized, independent, chartered, or component,” he added.
The 13 COCs canvassed by Comelec, meanwhile, came from the LAV; from the OAVs in Timor-Leste, Brunei, Cambodia, Japan, Myanmar, Singapore, Chile and North and Latin Americas, Czech Republic, Jordan, and Middle East and Africas, Sweden; and local voting from Baguio and Ifugao province.
As of now, Comelec has not publicly released its partial and official tally, with Laudiangco saying that it will be shown on Wednesday, when the NBOC resumes.
Currently, a diverse mix of candidates from different parties and alliances is dominating the senatorial race, as per the partial and unofficial count shown on Comelec’s transparency servers.
As of 5:16 p.m., Senator Bong Go still leads in the partial tally, getting over 26.47 million votes.
READ: Go, Aquino, Dela Rosa top Senate race in partial, unofficial results
Behind Go are the following candidates:
- former Senator Bam Aquino – 20.6 million
- Senator Ronald dela Rosa – 20.25 million
- ACT-CIS Rep. Erwin Tulfo – 16.80 million
- former Senator Kiko Pangilinan – 15.08 million
- Sagip party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta – 14.90 million
- former Senator Ping Lacson – 14.85 million
- former Senate President Tito Sotto – 14.59 million
- Senator Pia Cayetano – 14.30 million
- Deputy Speaker Camille Villar – 13.35 million
- Senator Lito Lapid – 13.11 milion
- Senator Imee Marcos – 13.03 million
/mcm
