FORMER Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Thursday asked the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, to junk the counter-election protest filed by Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo after she failed to pay the required P8-million initial installment that was ordered by the court for her protest to prosper.
“In view of the failure on the part of the protestee-counter-protestant to pay the first tranche of the cash deposit for her counter protest within the deadline set by this Honorable Tribunal, protestant Marcos is now constrained to move for the immediate dismissal of the counter-protest,” Marcos said in an eight-page omnibus motion filed through his lawyer George Erwin Garcia before the PET.
On March 21 the SC ordered Marcos to pay P66,223,000, while Robredo was directed to pay P15,639,000.
The first payment was supposed to have been paid on or before April 14, but was moved to April 17, since Good Friday fell on that day. The second payment is set on July 14.
On April 17 Marcos was able to comply and deposited P36,023,000 in the form of a cashier’s check with the SC’s Cash Collection and Disbursement Division.
However, Robredo did not pay P8 million and instead filed a Manifestation with urgent ex-parte omnibus motion for clarification and for reconsideration of the March 21 resolution.
Marcos argued that Robredo’s filing of a manifestation with urgent ex-parte omnibus motion does not excuse her from paying the cash deposit since the same is “obviously dilatory”.
“Robredo’s intention to further delay the proceedings in this case is evident from the arguments raised in her latest submission. Protestant Marcos finds it quite ironic that Robredo would ask for the deferment of the payment of her cash deposit even though she had already expressed her conformity and willingness to pay the same in the manifestation with urgent ex-parte omnibus motion,” Garcia added.
Robredo won by 263,473 votes over Marcos in the vice-presidential race in the May 2016 elections.
Marcos questioned the results in several provinces consisting of 662 towns and their component cities, and the 2,537 clustered precincts from five highly urbanized cities.