MANILA – The Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), was scheduled to start today the revision of vice presidential votes in three provinces during the 2016 polls.
This was in line with the electoral protest that former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. filed against Vice President Leni Robredo.
A total of 5,418 ballot boxes from clustered precincts in Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental that Marcos chose for the initial ballot recount will be the subject of the review, Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te said.
“Around 400 more ballot boxes from Camarines Sur are in the custody of bodies where there are pending poll cases,” Te said. “These ballot boxes will be retrieved later for the revision.”
“As to the Negros Oriental and Iloilo ballot boxes, [they] will be retrieved at a later date due to storage area constraints,” he added. “But rest assured that these are properly accounted for in compliance with a temporary protection order.”
The PET hired 40 head revisers to verify the physical count of the ballots. Two revisers – one each from the Marcos and Robredo camps – will complement the PET revisers.
Objections, questions and claims by both camps will be recorded and the subject ballots marked, but no ruling shall be made by the revisers. Only the PET may rule on these collated issues.
The revision will run Mondays through Fridays, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a 15-minute break at 10 a.m., one hour lunch break at 12 noon and an afternoon break from 3 to 3:15.
LENI RELIEVED
Meanwhile Robredo said she is relieved that the PET will finally begin its manual recount. She believes this will finally put an end to claims that she cheated her way to the vice presidency.
“Matagal na naming hinihintay na magsimula na iyong recount, kasi ang pakiramdam nga namin, nagkakaroon lang ng pagkakataon na gamitin iyong isyung ito para i-muddle kung ano iyong katotohanan,” she said.
Marcos, son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., lost to Robredo in the May 2016 vice presidential race by a 263,473 votes.
In his electoral protest Marcos alleged that there were massive vote-buying, pre-shading of ballots, preloaded secure digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning vote counting machines, a script change in the transparency server that allegedly altered the results, and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/under-votes for vice president./PN
