The Philippine's outgoing president Ms Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has appealed for calm amid allegations of that cheating during last week's elections handed her six more years as premier.
Ms Arroyo, careful not to celebrate prematurely after doing well in exit polls, asked Filipinos for patience during an official counting process that will take at least three weeks. "The president is reaching out to all Filipinos to leave any residual rancour or animosity behind and buckle down to work and normalcy," her spokesman Mr Ignacio Bunye said in a statement. Underlining the problems facing those counting the votes, police said unidentified gunman staged three separate attacks in the northern Philippines on Monday and yesterday, stealing ballot boxes, trying to burn an election office and killing a policeman. And a bomb exploded today on the southern island of Jolo, killing one person and wounding 11, police said. Voters and investors face a nail-biting wait for results to confirm that economist Mr Arroyo has won her first electoral mandate by defeating movie star and political novice Mr Fernando Poe Jr. She has a commanding lead of 41 per cent of the vote to 32 per cent for her closest rival, Mr Poe, according to a reliable exit poll past. But her authority will be undermined unless she can calm anger about glitches that left two million people unable to vote.