MANILA – Vice President Leni Robredo is hopeful that the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, will release its decision on the electoral protest of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. today.
Robredo said in her radio program on Sunday that the high court must issue its verdict during its en banc session today to put an end to the “fake news” that coming out on the social media with regards to the decision.
“Marami nang naglalabasan na mga kwento at hindi naman natin alam kung totoo. Merong mga nagsasabing nagbaba raw ng pera, merong nagsasabing nilalakad, merong isang kwento ‘yung botohan daw 10-4, merong isang nagsasabi 8-6,” Robredo said.
Robredo, however, was also thankful that SC Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin have clarified that the verdict on Marcos’ petition was not being manipulated.
“Nagpapasalamat naman tayo na Chief Justice mismo iyong nag-set ng record straight na walang nangyayaring ganoon. Kami naman iyong tiwala binibigay natin sa Presidential Electoral Tribunal kasi iyon naman iyong dapat,” Robredo said.
“Iyong justice system na malakas, iyon iyong isa sa mga haligi ng demokrasya na kailangan iyong tiwala ng taumbayan parating nandiyan,” the Vice President added.
Bersamin said in an interview on Thursday that the justices were still deliberating on the draft report by Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa that was submitted as early as last month.
“Don’t worry hindi ko niluluto, hindi puwedeng lutuin ‘yan eh,” Bersamin said. “We are expected to have a result by next week. It may not be what you expect because we are still discussing on many other things.”
Marcos only lost the vice presidential race to Robredo by 263,473 votes in the final and official tally by Commission on Elections. Marcos garnered 14,155,344 votes while Robredo got a total of 14,418,817.
In his election protest, the former senator questioned the election results in 39, 221 clustered precincts in some 25 provinces and five cities all over the country involving around 9 million votes.
Marcos cited alleged pre-shading of ballots, massive vote buying, script change in the transparency server that supposedly altered the results, pre-loaded secure digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning vote counting machines, and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of vice president.
Robredo’s camp have earlier urged the tribunal to junk the electoral protest, claiming that the vice president’s lead even grew by 15,000 votes when the initial recount ended but the SC dismissed the petition as “speculative.”/PN
