It’s all over — including the shouting, and the fat lady has already sung.
William “Wimpy” Fuentebella was proclaimed winner of the congressional race for the fourth district of Camarines Sur, at 11 a.m. yesterday, surpassing his rival, movie actor-turned politician Aga Mulach by 2,225 votes.
Fuentebella garnered 82,534 votes while Mulach had 80,000 plus votes. Mulach claimed he was cheated of his victory, and claimed there was a failure of election.

However, in the early count, when he was winning over Fuentebella, he and his supporters were virtually proclaiming themselves as winners.
When the count went against Mulach, his supporters turned violent and even beat up the supporters of Fuentebella.
They kept on holding rallies in the municipality, insisting that the elections failed, and refused to accept his defeat in the hands of the Fuentebella clan, all of whom won their elective seats.
Evelyn Fuentebella, wife of incumbent Deputy Speaker, Arnulfo Fuentebella, easily won her mayoralty seat and is a reelectionist mayor of Sangay, Camarines Sur, while son Arnie Funetebella won his Tiagon Camarines Sur mayoralty seat once more.
Mulach was also accused of vote buying through the distribution the registration papers for the 4Ps, or the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, which is the doleout program of President Aquino.
Presented with the evidence, Mulach, in a radio interview in Camarines Sur, questioned on the signed registration papers for the 4Ps or the CCT doles to voters, Mulach pointed to President Aquino and Social Welfare Services chief Corazon “Dinky” Soliman as having ordered the distribution of the registration papers from May 11 to election day, which showed that Aquino and Soli-man were into bribing and corrupting the voters through vote buying, and using government funds to ensure the victory of the Liberal Party bets.
To date both the Palace and DSWD has remained silent on the issue of vote buying.
Mulach earlier virtually proclaimed himself as the winner of the 4th district in Camarines Sur, and even praised the polls, as he was at that time leading in the race over former Rep. Wimpy Fuentebella.
With him having lost the race, he has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare a failure of elections in the district where he is running.
The actor-turned-politician asked the Comelec to declare failure of elections in several areas in Camarines Sur.
In his five-page petition, Mulach urged the poll body to set aside precinct results and declare a failure of elections because of corrupted compact flash (CF) cards of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.
The petitioner cited the report at a poll precinct in Tigaon, Camarines Sur, where some 668 votes cast were not counted due to alleged corrupted CF card.
“There were also some PCOS machines which were left unguarded compromising the sanctity and authenticity of votes,” the petition added.
A source from the camp of the Fuentebellas told The Tribune that Mulach is a sore loser. “He must have thought that because he is a movie actor, he could easily win the fourth disctrict congressional seat.”
But it has always been the service of the Fuentebellas to their constitutents in Camarines Sur that voters put their trust in them, the source said.

He always threatens to quit, but never does it — at least not until he gets his reward from President Aquino for making his senatorial candidates win the polls.

For the second time, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. yesterday threatened again to quit his post over the issue of early proclamation of the top six senatorial winners in the May 13 polls.
Brillantes dared his critics to prove that the six early winners he named can still be dislodged from the top 12 in the Senate race and then said he will step down.
This was the dare of Brillantes when he was interviewed by reporters covering the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) at the forum in Philippine International Convention Center yesterday.
The embattled poll chief said he will fight for the six and if the critics can prove that they will be dislodged from their position then he will resign his post.
Critics of Brillantes have aired their opposition to the decision of Brillantes to proclaim Thursday 

night the six senatorial candidates since there is a possibility that their current positions can be changed.
Brillantes issued such remarks amid criticisms on the legality of the partial proclamation. The proclamation of the six leading candidates was done without mentioning the number of votes obtained by the six, as well as the poll body disregarding the rule and the law on ladderized counting.
Those proclaimed Thursday evening were Grace Poe, Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Nancy BInay and Sonny Angara.
Binay was a no show in the ceremony but was represented by her lawyer Donna Camitan.
Senator-elect Binay said that the Comelec does not have sufficient numbers yet to proclaim the winners in the May 13 elections.
Binay said she was advised by her lawyer not to show up in the proclamation in protest over the Comelec’s refusal to grant the United Nationalist Alliance’s (UNA) motion to defer proclamation.
But Brillantes stood pat on his decision to proclaim the six topnotchers in the senatorial contest.
He explained that they did not give rankings to the six leading senatoriable and they used instead the alphabetical arrangement because they are sure that they will not lose.
The strong reaction of Brillantes came in the wake of criticisms that the proclamation of winning Senate bets last Thursday night was premature.
The Comelec, sitting as the NBOC named senators-elect the six candidates leading the its partial and official tally so far.
The proclamation was however based not only on the running tally, Brillantes said, but also on the poll body’s projection based on reports from the local BOCs.
These projections were based on alternative partial reports of votes from local BOCs, which Comelec directed them to generate and transmit Wednesday.
The so-called grouped canvass reports, which allow election returns to be sorted by position, showed that the early senators-elect were sure winners, Brillantes claimed.
The Comelec proclaimed the six after it canvassed 72 certificate of canvass or 23 percent of 301 COCs.
Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal also tried to stop the partial proclamation Thursday evening with an urgent motion citing the Comelec was breaching its own NBC canvass rules laid down last May 6, but was rebuffed. On the other hand, UNA spokesman Toby Tiangco said in a radio interview that the meager number of CoCs tallied by the NBC included those from overseas absentee voting (OAV) centers, which are small in number.
He also asked the Comelec, what was the rush in the proclamation when there is yet a sizeable number of the COCs that have to be canvassed.
The poll body also yesterday defended its rushed proclamation of the six top senatoriables saying the NBOC used as basis the early proclamation the faxed tallies they received.
The Comelec disclosed that as early as May 15 or two days after the elections they had ordered local canvassers who failed to transmit their COCs to fax them directly to the NBOC.
These tallies was used by the poll body to project the numbers from the COCs that the NBOC has yet to receive.
In determining the exact number of votes that a candidate received, the official basis is still the canvassing done in PICC, Pasay City.
The Comelec sitting as the NBOC gave the media Resolution No. 9706 yesterday saying they used the validated tallies as basis to determine the votes obtained by all the candidates for senator; and to ascertain whether or not the standing of the candidates who may be initially proclaimed as duly elected senators, will be affected by the remaining provincial and city certificates of canvass still to be received by the NBOC.
The resolution which was promulgated on Thursday, May 16, said transmitting COCs has delayed the canvass and consolidation of votes for senators and party-list groups.
In Resolution No. 9701 issued on Wednesday, the Comelec said it will use these faxed tallies – called grouped canvass reports in monitoring, not necessarily in the official canvassing.
The six senators was proclaimed by the NBOC Thursday night after having canvassed 23 percent of the COC drawing flak from various groups that include the UNA that earlier filed a petition to postpone the early proclamation.
Meanwhile, reelectionist senator Koko Pimentel, who ran under President Aquino’s Team PNoy has sided with the position of UNA against the Comelec decision Thursday to make a partial proclamation of winning senatorial bets.
Pimentel said his position is that it was premature for the NBOC to do so with only 17 million of the votes cast being counted by the body. With Angie M. Rosales and Alvin Murcia

It was another landslide victory for Gov. Khalid Dimaporo who is seeking his third term of office as chief executive of this fast-rising province.
With 136,778 votes against 86,913 of nearest opponent Casan Maquiling (Liberal Party), Dimaporo was proclaimed on May 15 by the Provincial Board of Canvassers as the winning gubernatorial candidate in the province of Lanao del Norte.
Also proclaimed were the winners of top provincial posts, Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo as Representative for the 1st congressional district, Abdullah Dimaporo for the 2nd congressional district and Cristy Atay as Vice Governor all from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).
“As a third-termer this is my final stint as provincial governor. I will do my best that people are satisfied with my administration. So in behalf of Team Dimaporo and our party, we would like to thank the people of Lanao del Norte to choosing us to lead and administer the province,” Dimaporo said.
Other winners proclaimed were the new set of Sanggunian Panlalawigan members. For the first district — Grecille Matalines (51,352 votes), Casimero Bagol (43,093 votes), Baldomero Zamora (38,661), Mac Dibaratun (36,246 votes), and Jackmar Maruhom (32,338 votes).
In the second district, only three board members were proclaimed — Benny Baguio (41,770), Harris Ali (35,138), and Omar Osop (44,480) pending transmittal of election data from the towns of Tangcal, Nunungan and Sultan Naga Dimaporo (SND) to the provincial canvassing board.
“We are very much thankful to all our loyal supporters who continue to believe in us and who voted for us despite the massive vote-buying and below-the-belt accusations and insults from our political opponents,” Rep. Imelda Dimaporo said.
The local Comelec is expected to proclaim all the provincial winners by the end of the week. The provincial board of canvassers is headed by provincial election supervisor Joseph Hamilton Cuevas.