San Carlos Regional Trial Court Judge Kathrine Go yesterday said she has extended the recount of the 2013 votes in Toboso, Negros Occidental, until July 6.

The recount that was supposed to end yesterday is extended for another five days, since July 1 is a holiday, being the 55 th charter anniversary of San Carlos City, Go said.

The recount of the votes of Toboso Mayor Richard Jaojoco, Vice Mayor Evello Valencia, and the eight members of the Sangguniang Bayan – Jesus Bedonia Sr., Jesse Rex Bartolome, Jose Marie de la Cruz, Julian Muñez Jr., Mario Muñoz, Adriano Panarez Jr., Josephus Valencia and Lloy Viullaruz had been ordered following cases filed by their opponents in the 2013 polls.

Mayoral candidate, Ma. Luisa dela Cruz, with Edilberto Sayat, Jose Ballesteros and John Paul de la Cruz, are questioning the veracity of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines' vote count results.

Jaojoco lamented that the manual vote count could take longer than just an additional five days at the rate it has been going.

Those tasked with doing the vote revision were only able to recount the ballots from six of 31 ballot boxes as of Thursday, and were only starting on six more ballot boxes yesterday, he said.

There were no differences between the PCOS count results and the manual count of the votes from the six ballot boxes counted, so far, he said.

The slow count was caused by numerous delaying tactics being employed by the complainants, he said.

He said the complainants are also asking that a UV lamp be used to inspect the authenticity of the ballots.

Jaojoco said he has faith in the PCOS machines and is certain he and his companions won the 2013 polls.

Jaojoco won as mayor of Toboso with a margin of 1,858 votes against dela Cruz.*CPG

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