THE Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, met behind closed doors on Tuesday to thresh out issues including how it would proceed with the speedy resolution of the protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos claims he lost the vice presidential race to Robredo in the 2016 elections because he was cheated during the counting of the votes.
In a press conference after the hearing that he attended, Marcos said he was pleased that the process on his protest had been moving.
“What is clear with the justices is that they are very interested in proceeding to the arguments and finally to the revision of the counting of the votes,” Marcos said.
“We are thankful that the justices are also interested in how to speed up the process so that our people will really know the real count of the votes.”
Marcos’ lawyer George Garcia said Robredo’s camp tried to delay the process by raising issues that should not have been part of the case.
“Good thing the tribunal really wanted to open the ballot boxes because they really wanted to find out the truth,” he said.
“The tribunal is hell-bent in proceeding with the case… it’s good that the tribunal disregarded the issues raised by the other parties.”
According to Robredo’s lawyer Maria Bernadette Sardillo, the justices raised questions during the hearing but did not resolve the pending motions earlier filed by both camps.
Sardillo said several magistrates raised concerns on the feasibility and practicability of the plea of Marcos’ camp for a recount and the revision of the voting results.
“One of the justices said it would be logistically hard for the tribunal to conduct the recount,” Sardillo said.
She said the comment made by another justice that it might be hard to reexamine the result of the vice presidential contest without considering the implications on the results in other key positions given that the elections were automated.
She said the justices wanted to limit the witnesses to three per contested clustered precinct.
After the preliminary conference attended by eight justices, the tribunal is expected to issue a ruling on the pending motions of the two parties.
Meanwhile, the Marcos camp has completed the payment of the P66.223-million protest fee as required earlier by the PET for his electoral protest against Robredo.
Garcia said the payment was made on Monday through two checks, one for P15 million and another one for P15.2 million.
The Marcos camp paid the balance ahead of the July 14 deadline set by the PET.
The PET had ordered Marcos to pay P66,223,000 for the 132,446 precincts for his election protest. He paid the initial amount of P36.2 million on April 17.
Garcia made the disclosure before the PET was convened to hold a preliminary conference on Marcos’ protest and Robredo’s counter-protest.
Garcia said they made the payment of P30 million to the PET and most of the amount came from the former senator’s friends.
“He received support from his friends,” Garcia said. She said Marcos even sold a condominium unit to defray the cost of his electoral protest.
Marcos filed his protest on June 29 last year, claiming Robredo’s camp cheated in the elections. He sought the annulment of about a million votes cast in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.
Marcos contested the results in 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities.
In his preliminary conference brief, Marcos also sought a recount in Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.
Robredo filed her answer in August last year and also filed a counter-protest and questioned the results in over 30,000 polling precincts in several provinces where Marcos won.
She also sought the dismissal of the protest for lack of merit.
But the tribunal, in a ruling earlier this year, junked Robredo’s plea and proceeded with the case.
Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos who received 14,155,344 votes.
Marcos earlier said he decided to file his electoral protest due to the series of anomalies and irregularities that marred the May 9, 2016 elections and that such activities led to his loss to Robredo, the vice presidential candidate of the Liberal Party.