Dateline- Long Beach, CA

I'm back! It's been like 3 weeks since I last posted my most recent blog. My CPU had a virus which left me Net-less for 2 weeks. Although it was finally fixed a week earlier (and even upgraded to Windows XP), I didn't find time to make a new blog coz I had to answer all those e-mail messages that have been flooding my Hotmail & Friendster accounts during my brief hiatus, and due to the fact that I was busy installing and playing the very addictive yet entertaining Sims game. For the 2 weeks until the CPU was brought back home, I spend much of the time reading "Tuesdays with Morrie", attending a niece's 10th birthday in Griffith Park, calling some of my friends in the Philippines (some of whom didn't answer probably coz of the weak signal caused by a recent typhoon), watching movies in the local cinema (most recently "Shrek 2" which was good), pulling weeds in the garden of the place I'm staying, and so on....

There were also some interesting developments here in America & in the Philippines: Massachusetts became the first US state to legalize gay marriages, the Pacquiao-Marquez fight ended in a controversial draw, Fantasia Barrino won American Idol, the sitcom Frasier ended its 11-year run with a bang, a polio victim defeated a dynasty in the Philippine province of Isabela during the elections, FPJ & GMA still has a close fight for Malacanang with the incumbent leading slightly, the canvassing of votes by the Philippine Congress is going nowhere, US WWII veterans finally got a long-overdue memorial in Washington, DC (today happens to be Memorial Day, BTW), Shrek 2 became the highest-grossing film so far for the summer season, and the Lakers managed to make it to the Western Conference Finals of the NBA.

In the meantime, I would like to share the partial & unofficial NAMFREL tally covering 72.67 % of all precincts as of May 31 (Philippine time):

PRESIDENT

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo 8,982,463
Fernando Poe, Jr. 8,372,312
Panfilo Lacson 2,485,019
Raul Roco 1,605,093
Eduardo Villanueva 1,414,167

NOTE: GMA has a margin of only 610,151 votes over FPJ. And although he is currently in 4th place, Raul Roco still managed to lead in his stronghold Region V.

VICE-PRESIDENT

Noli de Castro 10,765,681
Loren Legarda 9,971,550
Herminio Aquino 729,663
Rodolfo Pajo 22,676

NOTE: De Castro leads Legarda by only 794,131 votes.

SENATORS (this is taken from the COMELEC tally, the leading 11 candidates have been proclaimed)

Manuel Roxas II 19,330,501
Ramon "Bong" Revilla, Jr. 15,780,662
Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. 13,474,779
Jamby Madrigal 13,224,005
Richard Gordon 12,681,081
Pia Cayetano 12,519,427
Miriam Defensor-Santiago 12,166,637
Alfredo Lim 11,256,068
Juan Ponce Enrile 11,162,148
Jinggoy Estrada 11,067,272
Manuel Lapid 10,943,145
Rodolfo Biazon 10,619,964
Robert Barbers 10,580,221
Ernesto Maceda 9,923,460
John Osmena 9,879,873

NOTE: The 12th spot is still being contested by Biazon & Barbers, with the former leading by only 39,743 votes. Whoever takes the spot will join Pimentel as the only re-electionists to successfully receive a mandate for a 2nd (and last) term in the Senate. In an interesting note, Roxas garnered the highest number of votes overall in Philippine election history (the overall record was originally "set" by Ferdinand Marcos when he won in the 1981 lopsided presidential election with 18,309,360 votes, while Noli de Castro's 16,237,386 votes in the 2001 midterm elections was the original record-holder in a senatorial race).