THE Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), on Monday took further cognizance of the election protest filed by Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. after it ordered parties in the case to submit memoranda on the latter’s plea to annul the election results for vice president in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.
This was agreed upon by the majority of the magistrates during their regular en banc session on Tuesday.
At a news briefing, SC Spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the PET gave the parties — Marcos and the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo — 20 days from receipt of notice to submit their respective memoranda.
At the same time, the PET also decided to release to the parties the result of the revision and recount of ballots in the three pilot provinces, namely Iloilo, Negros Oriental and Camarines Sur involving 5,415 precincts.
Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, who earlier rendered the report on the result of the revision and recount, dissented from the majority decision.
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.”