THE preliminary conference on the case filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the Supreme Court in connection with the vice presidential race in the May 9, 2016 elections has been set in June this year.
The June 21, 2017 date of the preliminary conference comes a year after the namesake and only son of the late former strongman Ferdinand Marcos filed an election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
In a resolution, the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, said “the PET granted protestant’s [Marcos’] motion for the setting of the preliminary conference and has set this case for preliminary conference on June 21, 2017, at 2 in the afternoon, without prejudice to the Tribunal’s resolution of all remaining pending incidents.”
The Court also said it will conduct the preliminary conference on Robredo’s counter-protest on the same date. It ordered Marcos and Robredo to file their preliminary conference briefs with it and serve the same on the adverse party at least five days before the date of the preliminary conference.
Both parties were required to file their respective preliminary conference briefs.
Four months ago, Marcos’ legal counsel George Erwin Garcia filed a four-page Ex-Parte Motion asking the Court to expedite his election protest by setting his case for preliminary conference.
Marcos said it was about time the PET issued the notice for preliminary conference since the last pleading joining the issues in his case had been filed and served as early as Sept. 9, 2016.
Garcia said under Rule 29 of the 2010 Rules of the PET, the preliminary conference should have been set after the filing of the last pleading.
He said the setting of the preliminary conference was important because it would set in motion the issues to be resolved, the list of witnesses and the evidence to be presented as well as the schedule of the hearings and the revision of the ballots in the protest.
“This is important because the preliminary conference will set into motion Senator Marcos’ election protest so it can finally move forward,” Garcia said.
Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo in June 2016, contesting 39,221 clustered precincts which are composed of 132,446 established precincts. Robredo, meanwhile, filed a counter-protest, questioning 8,042 clustered precincts that are composed of 31,278 established precincts.
During the en banc session in Baguio City, the high court justices dismissed the petition filed by Robredo’s camp seeking reconsideration of its March 21 resolution and directed her to pay the cash deposit as stated in the said resolution regarding the election protest.
In the March 21 resolution, Robredo was ordered to pay P8 million for the first installment and P7.43 million for the second for a total of P15.44 million.
Marcos was ordered to pay P66.02 million.
He paid P36.02 million as his first installment with the second amounting to P30 million to be paid on or before July 14 this year.
Robredo’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal filed a manifestation asking the Tribunal to make a clarification on the fees that Marcos must settle and hold in abeyance.
Robredo, who ran under the ruling Liberal Party, the political party of then President Benigno Aquino III, won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes, up by only 263,473 against the votes received by Marcos.
But Marcos declared that the cheating carried out in the May 9 elections was massive and unprecedented because it had become institutionalized.