Marcos’ camp is now asking the PET to annul the election results of the 2016 vice presidential race in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.

The Supreme Court (SC), sitting en banc and acting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), kept its decision on Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s election protest against Vice President (VP) Leni Robredo hanging yesterday as it only required the contending camps to comment on the revision and recount of the results in three pilot provinces in 20 days.

But Marcos’ camp is now asking the PET to annul the election results of the 2016 vice presidential race in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao even as it questioned the crawling pace of the case.

“We were shocked by the PET action,” said Marcos legal counsel Vic Rodriguez. “It was not what we expected from the SC. We have been waiting for this for three years. Imagine those years taken away from Mr. Marcos. But we will comply with the order.”

“Also, we will ask the SC if we can discuss both the first and second courses of action at the same time. We will file memoranda to annul the results in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.”

High Court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the SC gave both parties enough time of 20 days from receipt to comment on the revision and appreciation of the ballots from the three pilot provinces of Iloilo, Negros Oriental and Camarines Sur — involving 5,415 precincts. Earlier results showed Robredo winning over Marcos by more than 260,000 votes, which the former senator contested.

Hosaka also disclosed that Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa dissented from the majority decision. Both justices said Marcos’ protest should have been dismissed.

Marcos, in his election protest, cited three causes of action to merit a favorable decision, those of Automated Elections System (AES) allegedly being compromised; revision or manual recount of the actual ballots to determine the votes cast in all the 36,465 protested clustered precincts; and the annulment of election results for the VP position in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan on grounds of terrorism, intimidation and harassment of voters as well as pre-shading of ballots in all of the 2,756 clustered.

The PET dismissed the Marcos camp’s first cause of action, calling it “meaningless and pointless.”

The PET also released the committee report on the revision and recount of ballots from Iloilo, Negros Oriental and Camarines Sur to both parties for their comments, before a decision could be made.

Robredo’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal said he is not completely satisfied with the PET ruling as the VP’s camp was expecting outright dismissal based on Caguioa’s report of no substantial recovery of votes for Marcos.

“The moment we get a copy of the report, we will insist on the petition of Marcos be dismissed on the basis of Caguioa report,” he said.

He also lamented that the Marcos camp is “fishing for provinces” to find his needed numbers to win after Robredo’s rival asked for the votes from additional three provinces be annulled.

Supporters of Robredo and Marcos gathered outside the SC compound along Padre Faura St., in Manila in anticipation of a ruling.

Marcos filed the protest on 29 June 2016, Robredo had cheated.

Robredo was declared winner in the vice-presidential race in the 2016 election by the Comelec after she got 14,418,817 votes, which were 263,473 votes more than the 14,155,344 votes received by Marcos.