The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday slammed the Office of the Solicitor General after it filed a third motion asking the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, for another extension to file a comment on her appeal seeking a 25-percent shading threshold in the contested votes in the ongoing revision of the 2016 vice presidential race.
The camp of former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who protested Robredo’s proclamation as the elected vice president, has already opposed Robredo’s motion and asked the PET to dismiss her motion for reconsideration.
Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes.
In a motion, Robredo through her lawyers Romulo Macalintal and Maria Bernadette Sardillo expressed “vehement opposition” to the third motion filed by the OSG, saying the continued failure of the OSG to comment on the April 24 resolution of the PET was delaying the resolution of her appeal.
“If the motion for extension of time to file an answer to an election protest is not allowed under the rules, except for “compelling reasons” and only for a period not exceeding 10 days, there is no compelling reason why the Solicitor General and or Comelec would be given more than 10 days to file its comment on an issue the answer to which is already available to the Comelec,” Robredo said.
“Hence, this vehement opposition to the third motion for extension of time filed by the Solicitor General since it would already total to a whopping 40 days to file said comment and protestee’s motion that the said threshold issue be now resolved even without the said comment of the Solicitor General and or Comelec.”
In its April 24 resolution, the PET directed the OSG as counsel for the Comelec to comment on Robredo’s appeal within 10 days from notice.
The OSG received a copy of the resolution on May 17 and on May 28 filed its first motion, asking the Tribunal for 15 days to comment.
On June 11, the OSG filed another appeal, again asking for 15 days or until June 28 and on June 26, it again asked for another 15 days to file its comment.
The electoral tribunal earlier dismissed Robredo’s plea to consider ballot ovals shaded by a minimum of 25 percent as valid votes in the ongoing recount.
Robredo immediately filed a motion for reconsideration and argued that allowing a 50-percent threshold would disenfranchise voters because the votes that fell below the 50 percent threshold had already been counted as valid by the Vote Counting Machines in the 2016 national and local elections and then confirmed by the Random Manual Audit.