‘ACCEPT DEFEAT’ | Robredo asks PET to dismiss Marcos’ latest appeal for lack of merit

July 2, 2021 , 02:58 PM

By Beatrice Puente, News5 Digital

(July 2, 2021) – Vice President Leni Robredo on Friday urged the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to dismiss former senator Bongbong Marcos’ appeal on his junked poll protest due to lack of merit.

Robredo, through her lawyers, said Marcos should just accept his defeat after failing to show substantial recovery of votes from the three pilot provinces he chose.

“Now that he has been proven wrong, protestant Marcos now wants to change the rules so he can keep fanning the flames on his substantiated allegations,” Robredo said in her official comment to the standing motion. “Protestant Marcos has no one to blame but himself for the dismissal of his election protest.”

Last February, the PET unanimously dismissed Marcos’ electoral protest as a whole for failing to make his case out of the recount of votes in Camarines, Sur, Iloilo, and Negros Oriental, as stipulated under Rule 65. Robredo’s lead even widened by more than 15,000 votes after the process.

Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, who penned the ruling, said they did not find merit to push through with Marcos’ third cause of action because it could violate PET rules.

Marcos, the son and namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, in his subsequent motion, accused the Supreme Court of making a mistake in throwing out his third cause of action, saying it should be treated separately from his initial request for a recount. He said the alleged electoral fraud and violence in Basilan, Lanao del Sur, and Maguindanao should warrant vote annulment.

But Robredo argued Marcos’ arguments hold no weight because of his questionable witnesses who were not even registered voters of the said provinces.

“Clearly, protestant Marcos failed to even sufficiently show that his allegations on the annulment of elections have any legal or factual basis to stand on,” said Robredo.

Robredo’s camp also raised the requirements laid out by the case of Harlin Abayon vs. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal in 2016. It said the unlawful ballots should comprise half of the total votes cast and it should also be impossible to differentiate legal from illegal votes.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) also requires protesters to provide evidence that their opponent had a direct hand in electoral fraud. Marcos has never alleged that Robredo was directly responsible for the unlawful actions.

“Thus, how can protestant Marcos prove a fact that was not alleged in his election protest?” said Robredo. “Protestant Marcos cannot insist on proceeding to the third cause of action when he miserably failed to comply with the requirements laid down in Abayon.”

Despite successive losses, Marcos’ election protest against Robredo has been going on for almost five years now.

“In the end, protestant Marcos needs to concede and accept his defeat with grace,” said Robredo.

(PM)

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