The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo has asked the Supreme Court’s Presidential Electoral Tribunal to investigate how the audit logs from Camarines Sur were leaked and came into possession of lawyer Glenn Chong.
In a 35-page fourth manifestation of grave concern with urgent motion, Robredo’s lawyers asked the PET to look into how Chong came into possession of the audit logs from Ragay town in Camarines Sur.
“Given the data and documents in the possession of Atty. Chong who claims that he is not a lawyer of, representative or in any way connected to protestant Marcos, there is a need for the conduct of an investigation,” Robredo’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal said.
He said it was disturbing how someone like Chong, who claimed to have no apparent connection to the parties in this case, had been able to get a copy of the audit logs from Ragay.
Last March 9, Chong, on his Facebook page, posted a portion of the audit logs and even presented the audit logs to the Senate committee on electoral reforms during a July 31 hearing.
Moreover, he “consistently” denied having been a representative of Marcos when Senator Franklin Drilon confronted him for having two letters from the Marcos’ camp authorizing him as one of the representatives on several occasions.
Under oath, Chong also testified that he got the audit logs from the SET.
But Macalintal said Ragay was not covered of the election protest filed by losing senatorial bet Francis Tolentino before the SET.
The audit logs were not submitted by the Commission on Elections to SET.
According to Macalintal, the camps of Marcos and Robredo were able to secure soft copies of the decrypted ballot images and audit logs from the 62 clustered precincts from Ragay.
“Thus, if Atty. Chong were to be believed that he never represented protestant Marcos, where did he get the data from the municipality of Ragay, Camarines Sur which he presented to the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms?” he asked.
He informed the PET that Chong, who claimed he was not a representative of Marcos, possessed copies of the resolutions of the PET and pleadings submitted by the parties.
He challenged the presence of Chong during the closure activities of Comelec wherein only representatives of the parties were allowed to observe, and during the preliminary conference and was even one of the witnesses in Marcos’ first cause of action.
He accused Chong of trying to sway public opinion and to preempt any resolution of the PET by discussing the merits of the case on his Facebook account and in the Senate hearing.
Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo over alleged “massive electoral fraud, anomalies, and irregularities” in the May 2016 national polls.
He contested the integrity of the ballots in Camarines Sur, Negros Oriental, and Iloilo.
