The Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, deferred taking action on Tuesday on former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s electoral protest questioning the proclamation of Vice President Leni Robredo in the 2016 polls.
During its en banc session, the PET resolved to reset its deliberation on the report submitted by Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa, the justice-in-charge of the case, which contained the result of the examination of ballots.
“I would like to inform you that the Presidential Electoral Tribunal has deferred action on the report of Justice Caguioa,” SC’s Public Information Office chief and spokesman lawyer Brian Keith Hosaka said.
Last Sept. 9, Caguioa submitted his report to the PET on the results of the revision of ballots.
Resumption on the deliberation on the matter is set on Oct. 8, according to a source.
Robredo is hoping the Supreme Court would rule in her favor over Marcos’ electoral petition.
While she could not speculate what the PET decision would be, she said she was still confident to get a favorable decision.
“Actually, we have waited for the decision. A few months ago, we filed a motion, asking the court to act on the electoral protest since the recount has already been finished,” she said.
She added she wanted the electoral protest be resolved so that critics would have no other way to spread propaganda, “which most of the time is fake news.”
“This [case] is a test. It is not just a fight between the two of us. This is a test of the entire electoral process, a test of the justice system, so the main issue here is bigger than both of us that’s why it is important,” the vice president said.
Marcos lost to Robredo by about 200,000 votes in the 2016 presidential polls.
In his poll protest, Marcos had claimed that “massive cheating” caused him to lose to Robredo in the 2016 vice presidential race. which she denied.
Marcos sought to nullify the proclamation of Robredo and called for the recount of votes in the vice presidential race.
The high court earlier announced that it has finished its manual recount of ballots in three provinces Marcos chose, which supposedly best exemplified cases of fraud.
The pilot recount covered 5,417 voting precincts in Iloilo, Camarines Sur, and Negros Oriental.
In his electoral protest, Marcos said he could prove that irregularities marred the conduct of the 2016 polls in the said provinces. Marcos has chosen three pilot provinces—Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.
It is now up for PET to decide, based on Caguioa’s report about the pilot provinces whether to proceed in the vote revision on 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities identified in Marcos election protest.
The composition of the SC, acting as PET, is set to change soon, with Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin retiring on Oct. 18 and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on Oct. 26.