MANILA – The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo asked the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to release the report on the initial recount of votes in Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s electoral protest.
Atty. Romulo Macalintal, Robredo’s legal counsel, on Monday filed a motion asking the SC to “furnish the parties with a copy of the summary and committee reports on the revision, recount and re-appreciation of ballots from the three pilot provinces of Camarines Sur, Negros Oriental and Iloilo.”
“Napakaraming espekulasyon. Nanalo na raw si Marcos, natalo na raw si VP Robredo. ‘Yang mga espekulasyon na ‘yan ay walang katotohanan,” Macalintal said.
A newspaper column last week wrote that the high court justices have voted 8-6 in favor of Marcos’ electoral protest but SC Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin have denied the report.
Macalintal also clarified that what the PET will determine during their scheduled voting today is whether there is basis to continue with the electoral protest based on the results of the initial recount.
“If the initial recount showed there was substantial recovery on the part of Marcos, the recount will proceed to the remaining 24 provinces and highly-urbanized cities that Marcos named in his protest,” Macalintal said.
“If there is no substantial recovery, the PET will dismiss the entire protest and affirm Robredo’s status as VP,” the lawyer added. “Anuman ang mangyari bukas o sa mga susunod na araw ay mananatili siyang vice president.”
Marcos only lost the vice presidential race to Robredo by 263,473 votes in the final and official tally by Commission on Elections. Marcos garnered 14,155,344 votes while Robredo got a total of 14,418,817.
In his election protest, the former senator questioned the election results in 39, 221 clustered precincts in some 25 provinces and five cities all over the country involving around 9 million votes.
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.
Robredo’s camp have earlier urged the tribunal to junk the electoral protest, claiming that the vice president’s lead even grew by 15,000 votes when the initial recount ended but the SC dismissed the petition as “speculative.”/PN