Former Speaker of the House, Pantaleon Alvarez during the proclamation rally of presidential aspirant, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and his running-mate, Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III at the Imus City Grandstand in Cavite on Feb. 8, 2022. George Calvelo, ABS-CBN News
MANILA – Former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez led the congressional race in the first district of Davao del Norte, based on partial, unofficial tallies as of Tuesday.
Alvarez has secured 142,570 votes as of 12:17 p.m., based on aggregated Commission on Elections data on 488 election returns.
His closest competitor, Bong Aala, had 106,816 votes so far.
Edwin Jubahib, who is running with Alvarez under Partido Reporma, led the gubernatorial race with 305,682 votes, against rival Roy Catalan's 198,926 votes, as of this posting.
In April, Alvarez made headlines after his party’s local chapter shifted its support to presidential candidate Vice President Leni Robredo from Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
But Robredo emerged as a distant second to Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr in the presidential race. He has secured some 30.8 million votes against her 14.7 million votes, with about 97 percent of election returns transmitted as of 12:17 p.m.
Davao del Norte delivered at least 463,447 votes for Marcos and 38,842 votes for Robredo.
"Siguro ang pagpapaliwanag ko d'yan ay siya (Alvarez) mismo may laban na hinaharap. Lamang siya pero daang libo rin ang nakuha ng kalaban niya," said Ronald Holmes, president of polling firm Pulse Asia.
(The explanation I could give is he is facing his own battle. He's leading his opponent, but they also got hundreds of thousands of votes.)
Alvarez was House Speaker until he was ousted in 2018. President Rodrigo Duterte said then that the ouster was "maneuvered" by his daughter Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Duterte-Carpio, Marcos Jr's running-mate, enjoys a wide lead in the vice presidential race.
Visit the ABS-CBN News Halalan results page to see the partial unofficial tally of election returns.
For other updates, visit ABS-CBN News' live blog here.