MANILA, Philippines – The Senate and the House of Representatives will start the canvassing of votes for president and vice president next week.

The two chambers will reconvene tomorrow as a law-making body to act on pending measures. They plan to do so until Tuesday.

On Wednesday, they will convene as a canvassing board to begin the official tally of votes cast for presidential and vice presidential candidates in the May 9 elections.

The canvass will be done in a joint session, where a quorum of each chamber must be present.

Before the count starts, the joint session will first approve the canvassing rules that the Senate and the House have drafted.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. promised the nation a speedy canvass by lawmakers.

He said it is their “bounden duty” to conduct the canvassing and determine the winners as fast as possible.

He said the two chambers would proclaim the winners before June 10, when the outgoing 16th Congress is scheduled to close its third and last regular session.

Senate President Franklin Drilon earlier made a similar promise, but said he could not predict a timeframe for the vote count and proclamation of winners.

Belmonte and Drilon will jointly preside over the joint session and the canvassing.

Under the draft rules, a canvass committee would be created, to be composed of members appointed by Belmonte and Drilon.

When Congress resumes sessions tomorrow, the Senate “will first finish its work and pass on third reading a number of bills which are on the last stages of enactment,” Senate secretary Oscar Yabes said.

“The next day we will proceed to join the House in convening the NBOC,” Yabes said. NBOC stands for National Board of Canvassers.

“Likewise, we will physically transport to the House on May 24, Tuesday, all of the ballot boxes containing the certificates of canvass (COCs) and election returns which were physically transported to the Senate immediately after the elections.

House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said the tight vice presidential race could delay the congressional count.

He said members of the canvassing committee and lawyers of Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo could subject the COCs to close scrutiny for defects or signs of irregularities.

“We will have no problem with the presidential candidates because of the huge lead of Mayor (Rodrigo) Duterte and the fact that his opponents have already conceded defeat. But in the VP race, siguradong bubusisihin yung mga (they will surely scrutinize the) COC,” he said.

He added observations and objections from supporters of Marcos and Robredo among lawmakers and lawyers of the two candidates would result in canvassing delays.

He noted that Marcos lawyer former Commission on Elections chairman Sixto Brillantes has already vowed to subject the COCs to close scrutiny.

Gonzales pointed out that since the COCs contain votes both for president and vice president, delay in the tabulation of votes for Marcos and Robredo would mean delay in the tallying of votes for president.

Robredo, runningmate of administration standard-bearer Mar Roxas, is leading Marcos in the unofficial tally by more than 200,000 votes.

In tallying the votes, the canvassing committee would start with the COCs for overseas absentee and local voting. COCs from provincial and city canvassing boards would then follow.

The committee would compare the manually filled-out COCs and the electronic copies to be generated from the consolidation and canvassing system installed in the House.

Lawyers of candidates would be allowed to manifest their observations on the canvass documents. The joint committee would have the power to resolve all disputes.

After the canvassing is finished, the committee would prepare a report, which would be submitted to a joint House-Senate session, which in turn would pass a resolution approving such report.

The winning presidential and vice presidential candidates would then be proclaimed. – Jess Diaz, Marvin Sy