Slow Vote Count Heightens Suspense in Philippines : Election: With only 5% of ballots tallied, both Santiago and Ramos predict victory in race to succeed Aquino. And both warn that cheating could mar the cumbersome count.

Agonizingly slow counting of more than 25 million ballots led to growing suspense and controversy today as an outspoken former judge and political newcomer held a tenuous lead in early returns against outgoing President Corazon Aquino’s personal choice in the bitterly fought Philippine presidential race.

But Monday’s national and provincial elections proved a surprising victory for Aquino, who has capped a stormy six-year term by presiding over a relatively peaceful and orderly election and by apparently blocking a comeback by followers of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Analysts said a victory by either Miriam Defensor Santiago, a feisty lawyer who once said she’d “rather stick needles in my eyes” than enter politics, or Fidel V. Ramos, a taciturn retired general who served as Aquino’s defense secretary, would represent both an affirmation of the country’s fragile democracy and a rejection of patronage-driven machine politics.

With only 5% of the votes officially tabulated, Santiago and Ramos both predicted victory and announced prospective government appointments. But both also warned that cheating still could mar the cumbersome manual canvassing that may take another week to produce final results.

Confusing the counting were conflicting totals being reported separately by Manila’s ABS-CBN-TV, ZNN radio, competing campaigns, civics groups, an officially designated media “quick count” group and the national Commission on Elections. The commission late Wednesday forbade local media to report unofficial vote counts, citing concerns over conflicting figures.

Critics charged that the tallies were skewed because most early returns favored Santiago strongholds around Manila and her home province of Iloilo.

In a press statement, however, Santiago insisted that her lead was “definitive and irreversible.” Although she warned that her opponents “might try to cheat,” she said her supporters would “not allow the triumph of evil.”

“It is too late in the day, for the will of the people is crystal-clear and irrefragable (indisputable),” said Santiago, a University of Michigan law school graduate known for mixing obtuse language with insults in her speeches. One Manila paper Wednesday hailed her as “The Mouth That Roared.”

Santiago’s success so far has stunned Manila’s political and diplomatic community, since her first run for elected office was widely dismissed as a maverick campaign by a rank outsider. Once the secretary of immigration, and later of agrarian reform, she was outspent and out-organized by her rivals in this campaign and carried no incumbent politicians on her ticket.

But by creating a one-woman crusade against corruption, using the music from “Rocky” and a campaign symbol of a fist clutching a red lightning bolt, Santiago successfully tapped an undercurrent of anger at traditional politicians. Her combative speeches drew scorn from Manila’s coffee shop columnists but clearly touched a nerve among young, urban voters fed up with political scandals, repeated coup attempts and crushing rural poverty.

At his press conference, Ramos, a West Point graduate, predicted that he would win by “a comfortable margin” of about 1 million votes once returns are in from his own provincial strongholds. “I am poised to overtake Santiago’s lead and, from there on, never turn back,” he said.

Critics derided Ramos as indecisive, a “Cory in pants,” but he capitalized on Aquino’s popularity and his own public image as a key figure in the “people power” revolt that toppled Marcos and installed Aquino in 1986.

Manila’s stock market jumped by 7.5% Wednesday to close at a near-record high, suggesting that investors and the business community view both front-runners as good news after last year’s zero-growth economy. Except for the still unsolved power crisis, analysts say economic liberalization under Aquino may allow the next president to lead a long-overdue recovery.

Trailing in third place, but still within striking distance, was Aquino’s estranged cousin, Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., a business tycoon known as the closest crony of Marcos during the late president’s martial-law regime. Ironically, early returns indicated that Cojuangco’s well-funded campaign was badly hurt by former First Lady Imelda Marcos, who drew support away from Cojuangco in her late husband’s bailiwicks across northern Luzon.

The most surprising loser was Ramon V. Mitra, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and leader of the country’s largest party. His vaunted political machine failed to deliver votes to an unpopular candidate who was widely seen as representative of wheeler-dealer politics.

Another apparent loser was Mitra’s most prominent backer, the politically active archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin. The cardinal quickly moved to recover, appearing with Santiago for photographers Tuesday and denying that he had attacked Ramos, a Protestant, in his widely publicized campaign homilies and speeches.

With just over 1 million votes tabulated by the official “quick count” early today, Santiago had won 271,424 votes, while Ramos had 238,208 votes. Cojuangco had 151,064 votes, followed by former Senate President Jovito Salonga.

Mitra was fifth, trailed by Imelda Marcos and Vice President Salvador Laurel.

ZNN Radio said, however, that its own count of 4.2 million votes showed Ramos taking the lead.

Voters also were electing a new two-chamber Congress, provincial governors and more than 17,000 local officials.