PETITIONERS of the disqualification case against presumptive President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. have been urged to stop pursuing their agenda of divisiveness and animosity, so that the new leaders can move forward in the difficult task of economic recovery.
Atty. Victor Rodriguez, chief of staff and spokesman of the former senator, said they should instead learn to respect the will of the majority—over 31 million who voted for Marcos in the unofficial count, pending the national canvass by Congress—and his running mate presumptive Vice President Inday Sara Duterte—in the recently concluded national and local elections.
“I appeal to those who keep on pursuing this divisiveness, the people have spoken. The Filipino people have spoken and an overwhelming majority has voted President-elect Bongbong Marcos and Vice President-elect Inday Sara Duterte into office as President and Vice President. Learn to respect the will of the Filipino people,” he said.
Rodriguez said they had yet to receive a copy of the petition filed before the Supreme Court to cancel the certificate of candidacy (COC) of Marcos, with a prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block the counting of votes cast for him and his proclamation should he win.
However, Rodriguez pointed out that the disqualification cases were already dismissed unanimously in the Commission on Elections, both at the division and en banc level.
“We have yet to receive a copy of the petition that was filed this morning. However, I think these cases have been resolved unanimously [already] by the Commission on Elections on the division level as well as the Commission on Elections en banc. And these cases have been dismissed and the decision was unanimous,” he said.
Rodriguez also called on the petitioners to allow Marcos Jr. and his incoming administration to spend the limited time in a day to work productively instead of spending time catering to their animosity.
“And I appeal to you, instead of pushing for your agenda of animosity, why don’t you just help us use our limited hours everday, we are all limited to 24 hours in a day, allow us to be more productive,” he appealed.
Earlier on Tuesday, petitioners Fr. Christian Buenafe, Fides Lim, Ma. Edeliza Hernandez, Celia Lagman Sevilla, Roland Vibal, and Josephine Lascano asked the High Court to issue a TRO enjoining and restraining the Senate and House of Representatives from canvassing the votes cast for Marcos and proclaiming him as president should he win the May 9 polls.
As of 2:47 p.m. on Friday, Marcos was still leading the partial and unofficial count of votes with 31,104,175 votes based on data from the Comelec Transparency Media Server.
Meanwhile, Davao City Mayor Duterte also maintains a huge lead among other vice presidential candidates with 31,561,948 votes as of the same period in the same partial and unofficial count.
A total of 55,197,306 votes out of the 67,442,616 registered voters have already come in as of posting. A total of 98.35 percent of the election returns have been processed so far.
Last week, the Comelec En Banc affirmed the resolution of the poll body’s Second Division’s resolution that junked the petition filed by Buenafe to cancel Marcos Jr.’s COC.
Similar to the ruling on the disqualification cases, the Comelec En Banc said the petitioners failed to raise new matters or issues to warrant the reversal of the former Comelec Second Division’s ruling.
Recently, Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said that, under Comelec rules, winning candidates for the 2022 elections who have pending disqualification cases could still be proclaimed without a final decision that would prohibit the poll body to do so and if there is nothing to prevent them from being proclaimed.