MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has dismissed the electoral protest of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
Out of the 15 members of the Tribunal, seven members fully concurred in the dismissal while eight concurred in the result.
In a virtual presser on Tuesday, SC spokesperson Keith Brian Hosaka confirmed the dismissal of Marcos’ poll protest. Hosaka did not specify the reason for the dismissal.
SC sources said the poll protest was dismissed due to his failure to allege specific acts showing fraud and was also “bare, laden with generic and repetitious” claims with no critical information as to time, place, and manner of irregularities.
No substantial recovery of votes was recorded for Marcos in the three pilot provinces of Camarines Sur, Negros Oriental, and Iloilo, which were part of Marcos’ second cause of action. Robredo had gained additional votes.
Due to the failure of the first two causes of action, Marcos cannot seek a third cause of action of annulment in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Basilan. In these places, Marcos claimed elections were tainted with terrorism, intimidation, harassment of voters, and pre-shading of ballots.
The Liberal Party (LP), where Robredo serves as chairperson, welcomed the SC’s decision to dismiss Marcos’ 2016 electoral protest which they said could have come “much sooner.”
“It affirms what we have been saying from day one which is that the allegations of cheating in the protest were baseless and unfounded,” said Sen. Francis Pangilinan, LP president.
Meanwhile, the Palace respected the decision of the 15 magistrates, mostly appointee of President Rodrigo Duterte, to solidify the vice-presidential victory of Robredo.
“Iyan ay desisyon ng Kataastaasang Hukuman, we respect that and we respect also that the camp of Sen. Bongbong Marcos has a further remedy of moving for reconsideration,” Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.
In his electoral protest filed a month after the election day in 2016, Marcos urged the PET to nullify the votes from the Mindanao provinces for “massive fraud” citing the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) technical examination of the results.
Marcos also questioned the poll results following his claim of “widespread presence of terrorism, violence, threats, coercion, force, intimidation, harassment of voters, and pre-shading of ballots in all the 2,756 clustered precincts.”/PN
