GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/06 June)– Claiming that a significant number of votes were not properly counted in the last May 13 elections, losing South Cotabato first district congressional bet Rogelio “Ruel” Pacquiao is seeking a manual recount of all the votes in the area.

Rogelio, younger brother of boxing icon and reelected Sarangani Rep. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, disclosed on Thursday that he filed an election protest against reelected Rep. Pedro Acharon Jr. after finding discrepancies in the results of the automated count generated from the recent polls.

His camp lodged the protest against Acharon before the House of Representative Electoral Tribunal (HRET) last May 27, he said.

The younger Pacquiao, incumbent chair of Barangay Apopong here, said that based on the certified final canvass report released by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in South Cotabato, around 285,000 registered voters in the province’s first congressional district were able to cast their votes last May 13.

But he said the combined votes that he and Acharon received only reached 268,456 or a difference of around 16,500 votes compared with the total number of votes cast.

Pacquiao, who ran under the People’s Champ Movement-United Nationalist Alliance (PCM-UNA) slate, garnered 130,377 votes while Acharon (Liberal Party-Nationalist People’s Coalition-Achiever’s with Integrity Movement) got 138,079 or a margin of 7,702 votes.

South Cotabato’s first congressional district covers the municipalities of Polomolok, Tupi and Tampakan as well as this city.

“A significant number of votes were missing (from the tally) so I think a manual counting must be done to clarify the discrepancy,” he said.

Pacquiao noted that his camp is not blaming the Comelec for the discrepancy which, he said, could have been due to the problems with the precinct count optical scan or PCOS machines.[]