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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Saturday, June 17, 2017
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MANILA – Losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. urged the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) for a vote recount in three pilot areas, including Iloilo.
In an 81-page preliminary conference brief filed yesterday, Marcos asked the PET for a pilot manual recount and judicial revision of ballots in Iloilo, Negros Oriental and Camarines Sur, the home province of Vice President Leni Robredo.
“Pinangalanan na ni Senator Marcos ‘yung tatlong pilot provinces na kung saan unang rerebisahin at magkakaroon ng manual recount,” said Marcos lawyer Vic Rodriguez.
He pointed out that it was extremely implausible for Robredo to obtain 573,729 votes in Iloilo as against Marcos’ 94,411 votes when his running mate, the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, was from Iloilo and they were warmly received by the Ilonggos during their sorties there.
Robredo’s running mate was an Ilonggo, too. Mar Roxas was from Capiz and though he lost in the presidential race, he won overwhelmingly in Western Visayas, including Iloilo province, defeating even Defensor-Santiago and eventual winner, Rodrigo Duterte.
Marcos lost the vice presidential race to Robredo by 263,473 votes in the final and official tally of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Marcos garnered 14,155,344 votes while Robredo got a total of 14,418,817.
“We are contesting 36,000 clustered precincts comprising 30 provinces subalit nakita namin ang katangi-tanging resulta ng halalan doon sa tatlong probisya,” said Rodriguez.
He said Negros Oriental was also chosen because Robredo’s supposed 248,102 votes as against Marcos’ 99,208 votes were dubious, considering the fact that Marcos was supported by the biggest political families in that province.
In his election protest, the former senator questioned the election results in 39,221 clustered precincts in some 25 provinces and five cities involving around nine million votes.
Marcos sought the nullification of a million votes cast in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao due to claims of massive cheating.
He also asked the PET to reopen the ballots and manual recount of eight 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, 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./PN
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