MANILA – The Supreme Court, sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has rejected the motions to inhibit SC Associate Justice Marvic Leonen from participating in the deliberations on the ongoing vice presidential poll protest.
The PET, in a unanimous vote on Tuesday, junked the motions consecutively filed by losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos and Solicitor General Jose Calida.
It also required the OSG and The Manila Times reporter Jomar Canlas to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court as the former was “not a party to the election protest” while the latter was cited as “basis to impute bias” on the part of Leonen.
In his motion, Marcos cited Leonen’s “scathing pronouncements” in his dissenting opinion in the Marcos burial cases, claiming Leonen was “biased and partisan” against him and his family.
He added Leonen’s appointment as negotiator for the government in the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Canlas’ two-part report, which discussed a reflection paper allegedly expressing his view that the election protest should be immediately dismissed.
The former senator also accused Leonen of deliberately delaying the resolution of the case with less than two years left in the term of the vice presidential post Marcos is contesting.
Calida, on the other hand, used similar arguments raised by Marcos in his motion, even citing, at one point, the same paragraph from Leonen’s dissenting opinion in the Marcos burial cases.
OSG also accused Leonen of mishandling a case which, while it ended with Imelda Marcos’ acquittal, allegedly led to Imelda’s loss because she was supposedly forced to re-litigate for 10 more years.
Marcos is urging the tribunal to proceed with his third cause of action on annulment of elections in the provinces of Maguindanao, Basilan and Lanao del Sur despite PET’s earlier finding that Vice President Leni Robredo’s 263,000 lead over him grew by 15,000 after the initial recount./PN
