BBM to blame for protest junking — Leni

Vice President Leni Robredo said that former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was to blame, not anybody else, for the dismissal of his election protest against her.

Robredo said she petitioned the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday to dismiss Marcos’ appeal and set aside the decision dismissing his 2016 election protest.

According to Robredo, Marcos “has no one to blame but himself” for the dismissal of his election protest.

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

The SC sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), through her lawyers, told the tribunal that the motion of the young Marcos for reconsideration of the junking of his protest lacks merit.

The former senator in his appeal insisted his third cause of action, the annulment of 2016 election results for vice president in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao could proceed independently from the manual recount and judicial revision.

The PET, composed of all the justices of the SC, was urged by Marcos to proceed with the presentation of evidence.

Marcos alleged that the tribunal did not give him an opportunity to present his evidence for the annulment of poll results in the three provinces on the grounds of terrorism, violence, intimidation, substitution of voters and pre-shading of ballots allegedly in favor of Robredo.

In his counter petition the vice president said that the PET did not err in dismissing the protest, citing the tribunal’s unanimous decision last 16 February that Marcos had failed to prove his allegations of irregularities and was not able to show substantial recovery following the recount of votes in the three pilot provinces (Camarines Sur, Iloilo, and Negros Oriental).

Under Rule 65 of the 2010 PET Rules, the tribunal may dismiss an election protest if it is convinced that the protestant or counter-protestant will “most probably fail to make out his case” on the basis of the pilot recount.
“The choice of pilot provinces was made by protestant Marcos himself. It was a personal choice. Nobody dictated upon him to choose them,” Robredo’s comment stated.

Robredo said in her petition, “Now that he was proven wrong, protestant Marcos now wants to change the rules so he can keep fanning the flames on his unsubstantiated allegations.”