New senators must wait until Saturday for proclamations — Comelec

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said the proclamation of winning senators could begin by Saturday, 17 May, at the earliest, if all election results (ER) could be transmitted on Tuesday, 13 May.

Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said the senators will be proclaimed at the Manila Hotel Tent City.

"Maybe this coming Saturday or Sunday, we can already proclaim the winning senators," Garcia told reporters in Filipino.

"The transmission was fast. Look, we are now at 98.9 percent. Maybe the remaining data will not affect the results, but of course, the Comelec needs 100 percent of the canvass)," he added.

As of Tuesday, data reflected from the Comelec transparency server showed the local ERs stood at 98.99 percent. This accounts for 92,453 out of the total 93,387 expected ERs.

The Comelec National Board of Canvassers convened to start the canvassing of votes for senators and party-list groups on Tuesday.

Senator Bong Go and former senator Bam Aquino currently lead the Senate race with 26,471,880 votes and 20,631,462 votes, respectively, based on the partial, unofficial results aggregated from Comelec data as of 4:18 PM.

Meanwhile, the Akbayan party-list continues to lead the party-list representative race, surpassing the two percent threshold. This puts the group in a strong position to secure up to three seats, the maximum allowed under the 20 percent sectoral representation rule.