The Senate Electoral Tribunal has dismissed the electoral protest filed by defeated 2016 senatorial candidate Francis Tolentino against Senator Leila de Lima as it released the results of the recount of the contested ballots in the pilot precincts.
In its Notice of Resolution 16-142 dated Feb. 21, 2019, but released only last April 4, the Tribunal granted Tolentino’s motion withdrawing his electoral protest against the former Justice secretary, thereby closing and terminating the entire electoral protest he filed in June 2016.
It also granted De Lima’s motion to make public the results of the revision and appreciation of recount proceedings covering 319,228 ballots from 654 clustered precincts that were earlier examined by the Tribunal.
“The motion for withdrawal of the election protest manifests the desistance of the Protestant from pursuing the case. There being no law or jurisprudence that prevents its approval, the Tribunal hereby grants the same,” the resolution read.
“The Tribunal, in the exercise of its discretion, [also] opted to release the results of revision and appreciation in the pilot precincts as these proceedings had already been completed,” the 31-page resolution added.
SET confirmed that the results of the initial determination of the concluded revision of pilot precincts did not show any proof of alleged irregularities or fraud in the 2016 polls that purportedly led to the defeat of Tolentino in the said elections.
“The results negated his allegations that pre-loaded SD cards were used or that his votes were not counted,” SET noted.
“After conducting the [barcode matching and vote matching proceedings] on 532 clustered precincts, it was confirmed that the barcodes of the actual paper ballots correspond to the barcodes of the picture images, and that “the votes” appearing on the actual ballots and picture images were the votes that were counted by the VCMs,” it added.
In fact, the tally of votes covering 319,228 ballots from 654 precincts during revision and appreciation even resulted to an increase of 895 votes for De Lima and only 702 for Tolentino, or a net gain of 193 votes in De Lima’s favor.
In the appreciation proceedings, SET noted that votes showing voters’ clear intention, even though they failed to comply with the 50 percent shading threshold set by the Tribunal and as long as they do not have any unnecessary markings, were counted.
It may be recalled that Tolentino repeatedly claimed alleged fraud and irregularities as the cause of his defeat in the 2016 national and local elections. De Lima won over him by a margin of 1.33 million votes.
In his motion dated last Jan. 3, Tolentino told SET that he “voluntarily” withdrew his electoral protest against De Lima to allegedly give his “undivided attention” in campaigning for the senatorial post in the upcoming 2019 midterm elections.
In his protest, aside from alleging that his votes were not counted or the SD cards were pre-loaded, Tolentino also purported there was an illegal by-pass of the Automated Election System which he failed to prove during the revision proceedings.
Tolentino, who is now running for senator under the administration’s PDP-Laban party, also failed to prove his accusation that the ballots in 4,120 clustered precincts were pre-shaded because there was an improbable 100% voter turnout.
“As to the alleged illegal by-pass of the AES, the evidentiary weight of the evidence presented by the Protestant, both documentary and testimonial, was not taken into consideration by the Tribunal as the reception of evidence relative thereto was not completed,” SET pointed out.
The Tribunal added, “Tolentino waved the presentation of witnesses [w]ho would testify that they did not cast their votes during the 2016 national and local elections in the precincts where they are registered voters yet the protested precincts reported a 100% voter turnout. Protestant, thus failed to prove the existence of the grounds that would justify the requested annulment.”
The lady Senator from Bicol has repeatedly advised Tolentino to simply accept the fact that he has lost in the last election and focus on his second senatorial bid instead of resorting to peddling lies that he was cheated on.
