BENIGNO AQUINO SET TO BE PROCLAIMED PHILIPPINE'S NEXT PRESIDENT

Philippine Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile points to the tally board for the presidential election that shows the grand total of votes for Benigno Aquino during the last day of canvassing for president and vice-president in Manila.

Manila: Benigno Aquino III, the son of Philippine democracy icons who promised to eliminate corruption and fight poverty, won a landslide victory in the May presidential elections, a congressional count showed Tuesday.
Fellow opposition leader and mayor of Makati City, Manila's financial district, Jejomar Binay, won the election for vice-president.

• Aquino won more than 15 million votes — about 5.7 million ahead of his closest opponent, ousted leader Joseph Estrada, who pledged to support him. Congress will officially proclaim Aquino's victory on Wednesday.
• "We have done this... for the Filipino people," Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile told a jubilant crowd before he and House of Representatives Speaker Prospero Nograles banged the gavel to conclude several days of vote canvassing.
• A 50-year-old bachelor and economics graduate, Aquino will officially become this Southeast Asian nation's 15th president on June 30. He will replace Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who ran for and won a House seat after a turbulent nine-year rule.
• Aquino said he wanted a street party with dancing and rock music instead of a grand inauguration at Manila's Quirino grandstand, which will be held after his proclamation at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
• "That's tradition [to hold the inauguration at the Quirino grandstand] but we also want to emphasise the idea that we are going to change a lot of things. We are inclined [to hold it at] Quezon Memorial [Circle] but we are told there are very little facilities, no stage for instance [for the event]," Aquino said.
• "So it will be a street party in Metro Manila. We're still working it out. The street party will have a ballroom as a theme, with rock and new music to suit my time," he said, adding that as many supporters as possible should attend the celebration.

Source: AFP