THE Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has already received the report from Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa on the result of the revision and recount of ballots in three pilot provinces covered by the election protest filed by former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Vice President Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
This was confirmed by SC Spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka at a news briefing following the Court’s regular en banc session on Tuesday
Hosaka said the PET has yet to take any action on the said report, thus, it reminded the parties in the election protest to observe the sub judice rule pending PET’s deliberation on the report.
“The Tribunal would like to again remind the parties that they are still subject to sub judice rule pursuant to its resolution dated February 13, 2018, and March 20, 2018. Hence, they are strictly ordered to refrain from making any public statements to the media with regard to the case,” Hosaka said.
The report covers the result of the revision and recount of ballots in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Oriental and Camarines Sur involving 5,415 precincts.
Caguioa is the PET member-in-charge of the case.
Earlier, Chier Justice Lucas Bersamin said the PET is expecting a “voluminous report” from Caguioa on the result of the preliminary revision of ballots in three pilot provinces.
The outcome of the revision and recount of ballots in the test provinces would determine whether PET would proceed in the vote revision on 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities identified in Marcos’ election protest.
“His submission is a prelude to the action of the Court on whether to proceed to the other aspects of the case,” the Chief Justice said.
Marcos’ protest cites three causes of action – first, that the Automated Elections System (AES) was compromised, hence, the integrity of the AES cannot be relied upon to declare a legitimate winner; the second requires the revision or manual recount of the actual ballots to determine the votes cast in all the 36,465 protested clustered precincts, while the third cause of action sought the annulment of election results for the VP position in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan, on the ground of terrorism, intimidation and harassment of voters as well as pre-shading of ballots in all of the 2,756 protested clustered precincts in the areas.
The PET has dismissed Marcos’ first cause of action for being “meaningless and pointless.”