THE camp of Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday asked the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to uphold its own rules in deciding on the fate of the election protest filed by former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against the former.
Robredo, through Lawyer Romulo Macalintal, filed a 23-page manifestation before the PET in light of unconfirmed news reports that the PET is inclined to order the continuation of the revision and recount of the ballots to cover other provinces subject of the election protest filed by Marcos.
“Worse, other reports have mentioned that, notwithstanding that protestant Marcos failed to show any substantial recovery in his pilot provinces, the Honorable Tribunal will proceed to the alleged Third Cause of Action,” the manifestation read.
After two deferments, the PET is expected to rule today (Tuesday) on the report submitted by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa on the result of the revision and recount of ballots in three pilot provinces covered by the election protest.
Caguioa’s 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 justice assigned to handle the election protest.
The outcome of the revision and recount of ballots in the test provinces will determine whether PET would proceed in the vote revision on 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities identified in Marcos election protest.
Macalintal pointed out that under Rule 65 of the 2010 Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, the fate of Marcos’s election protest should be determined by the result of the revision and recount of the ballots covering the pilot provinces.
Rule 65 states that the election protest must be dismissed if Marcos fails to prove his allegations of fraud and irregularities in the three pilot provinces.
“Surprisingly, notwithstanding the clear language of Rule 65 of the 2010 Rules of Presidential Electoral Tribunal, rumors abound on the Honorable Tribunal proceeding to the third cause of action despite an alleged finding that protestant Marcos has not made any substantial recovery,” the manifestation read.
Robredo’s camp said PET’s Rule 65 is not unique, considering that the Senate Electoral Tribunal and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal have both issued separate rules mandating the dismissal of an election protest should it be determined that the official results will not be affected after the revision of the pilot precincts.
Marcos’s protest cites three causes of action—first, that the Automated Elections System 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; 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 preshading of ballots in all of the 2,756 protested clustered precincts in the areas.
The PET has dismissed Marcos’s first cause of action for being “meaningless and pointless.”
Marcos filed an election protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo cheated in the automated polls in May also year.
The Commission on Elections declared Robredo winner in the vice presidential race in the 2016 election after she got 14,418,817 votes, which is 263,473 votes more than the 14,155,344 votes received by Marcos.
Bersamin earlier gave assurances that the SC will decide based on the merits of the case and will not be persuaded by public opinion.