ILOILO City – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Region 6 has secured all ballot boxes in this city and Iloilo province used during the 2016 election for shipment to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) that is set to recount the votes cast for vice president.
Regional Director Dennis Ausan vouched for the integrity of the ballot boxes. These were not tampered, he said.
The Supreme Court sitting as the PET on Monday started the recount of votes for the electoral protest filed by former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
Ausan said Comelec Region 6 would be waiting for instructions from the PET when to ship the ballot boxes to the Supreme Court.
“It’s not our decision. It’s really the decision of the PET kon san-o nila kuhaon,” said Ausan.
Representatives from PET were in Iloilo in recent weeks to secure the ballot boxes, he revealed
In Metro Manila, Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te said the principal objective of this exercise is to ascertain the number of votes received by Robredo and Marcos in the May 9, 2016 national elections through a manual recount of the votes.
Marcos had selected as pilot provinces for recount Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental which covered a total of 5,418 clustered precincts and the results of the revision of the pilot provinces shall thereafter determine whether the election protest would proceed with the remaining 31,047 protested clustered precincts.
The actual recount shall be conducted by revision committees, which are composed of three members each: one representative of the protestant, one representative of the protestee, and a head revisor, who shall represent the tribunal.
“As of (April 2), the PET constituted 40 revision committees. The target is 50 revision committees and the tribunal is still in the process of hiring and training applicants for the remaining 10 Head Revisor positions,” Te told reporters.
Marcos got 94,411 votes in Iloilo in 2016 while Robredo got 573,729 votes.
Marcos claimed there were many undervotes in Iloilo.
“Pag-undervote ibig sabihin ‘yung boto hindi nabilang. Kung minsan hindi tama ang pag-shade o sumubra sa boto….(I)n these three provinces napakataas masyado (undervotes),” said Marcos during a visit to Iloilo in January./PN
