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[av_heading heading=’ Supreme Court denies Leni plea to junk election protest’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Friday, February 17, 2017
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MANILA – The Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), dismissed the petition of Vice President Leni Robredo to dismiss the electoral protest filed by former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
Robredo’s camp argued that the high court has no jurisdiction over the case and that the protest is insufficient in form and substance.
“On the matter of the sufficiency of the protest, the same is already beyond dispute,” the Supreme Court said in a resolution made public on Thursday. “With the issuance of the summons, the Tribunal has found the protest to be sufficient in form and substance.”
“The protest contained narrations of ultimate facts on the alleged irregularities and anomalies in the contested clustered precincts, which the protestant needs to prove in due time,” the high court said.
But the Supreme Court stressed that nothing has been proven yet as to the veracity of Marcos’ allegations, and this gives the protestant the opportunity to prove their case in accordance with the 2010 PET Rules.
It also dismissed Robredo’s claim that Marcos improperly raised the authenticity and due execution of the certificates of canvass.
Robredo asked the PET to dismiss the case, saying the grounds raised by Marcos could not be used for an election protest and the allegations of cheating and vote-buying are just a “series of wild accusations, guesses and surmises.”
Marcos lost the 2016 vice presidential race to Robredo by 263,473 votes. Marcos garnered 14,155,344, while Robredo got 14,418,817, based on the final and official tally of the Commission on Elections.
Marcos questioned the election results in 39,221 clustered precincts in some 25 provinces and five cities involving around 9 million votes.
He sought the nullification of a million votes cast in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao due to claims of massive cheating. He also told the PET to reopen the ballots and manually recount 8 million votes in 23 provinces and five cities.
Marcos cited alleged pre-shading of ballots, massive vote-buying, script change in the transparency server that supposedly altered the results, preloaded secure digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning vote counting machines, and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/under-votes for vice president./PN
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