By Pacific Island Times News Staff
Manila-- Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has garnered 30 million votes against his closest rival, Vice President Leni Robredo, who had 14.9 million as of early Tuesday's tally.
The seeming landslide victory, which reflected the pre-election opinion polls, would bring back the Marcos clan, ousted by a people's revolt in 1986.
The process could take days before a winner is officially announced, but pollsters in this year's campaign have consistently shown the Marcos heir ahead with a commanding 30-percentage-point lead.
His running mate is Sara Duterte, daughter of the incumbent president, Rodrigo Duterte.
Marcos Jr. thanked his supporters late Monday evening as he led the partial and unofficial results of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) transparency server.
Though he is leading by a big margin against Robredo, Marcos urged Filipinos to continue to remain vigilant and protect their votes.
Even though the counting of votes is not yet over, I cannot wait to express my gratitude to all of you. I am grateful to everyone who helped and joined our fight, as well as for your sacrifices, work, time, skills, and hard work to us,” Marcos said at his campaign headquarters in Mandaluyong City.
Marcos said there were a lot of volunteers, groups, and political leaders who have helped his candidacy and believed in the UniTeam alliance's campaign of unity with Duterte, who is also leading the polls by a huge margin.
“I want to thank you for all that you have done for us. There are thousands of you out there: volunteers, parallel groups, political leaders that have…that cast their lot with us, because of their belief in our message of unity, because of their belief in the candidate, in the Marcos-Duterte tandem," he said.
The partial and unofficial results as of May 10, at 6:17 a.m. showed that Marcos has received over 30 million votes with 95.52 percent of the precincts reporting. Marcos has already surpassed President Rodrigo Duterte's winning numbers of over 16 million votes in 2016.
On Monday, millions of Filipinos cast their votes to elect the country's new leaders including the president, vice president, senators and party-list groups. (Philippine News Agency)