Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin on Thursday assured the public there would be no manipulation in the ruling of the Supreme Court, sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal, on the election protest filed by former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against the proclamation of Vice President Leni Robredo in 2016 elections.
Bersamin, who concurrently chairs the PET, stressed that no amount of pressure could influence the decision of each and every member of the electoral tribunal in resolving the election protest against Robredo.
The top magistrate said PET might come up with a ruling next week.
“This is something I can tell you: We are expected to have a result by next week, it may not be what you expect. We are still discussing many other things so that is all I can tell you. Don’t worry di ko niluluto, di pwede lutuin yan,” Bersamin said, when interviewed by reporters at the sidelines of the launching of the Judiciary Memorabilia Hall featuring the retiring Chief Justice.
When asked if the PET would come out with a ruling on Tuesday during the SC en Banc, Bersamin said: “Probably… We cannot tell. There may be a decision, there may not be a decision. But the reality is we are still considering whether there are already enough before us.”
Bersamin explained that he could not give categorical answer because “I am bound by confidentiality.”
“I cannot bring you into the Banc otherwise we would make our deliberations public. We have certain rules to follow on non-disclosure and I am very careful not to infringe those rules because I am the leader of the Court and would not be loquacious or talkative about what they are doing [at the PET],” he said.
The top magistrate made the statement after the PET twice deferred taking action on the report of Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa on the revision of votes involving the three pilot provinces chosen by Marcos last Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.
Caguioa, the member-in-charge of the case, submitted the report on the recount and revision on the three pilot provinces last Sept. 9.
During the previous Tuesdays when the SC would hold its en banc session, supporters of Vice President Robredo gathered outside of the SC along Padre Faura Street, Manila City to appeal to the justices to dismiss the Marcos poll protest.
Bersamin admitted they were aware about the presence of demonstrators outside their gate but despite the clamor of the parties, they try not to be affected.
“We do not feel the pressure. We know there is pressure there but we are very mature members of the Supreme Court so if anyone of us feels pressured we would just help the pressured member. I tell you, all of us are pressured to some degree but the pressure we experience is bearable because if not, we should all just resign,” he pointed out.
According to the poll body, Robredo got 14,418,817 votes, which is 263,473 votes more than the 14,155,344 votes received by Marcos during the May 2016 polls.
On June 29, 2016, Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo.
He asked the PET to declare Robredo’s victory as null and void; to conduct a recount of ballots in all of the 36,465 protested clustered precincts in 27 cities and provinces; and to declare the election results in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Basilan as null on the grounds of terrorism, intimidation, and harassment of voters.
With his electoral protest, Marcos was allowed to designate three pilot provinces namely Iloilo, Camarines Sur and Negros Oriental that would best exemplify election fraud for the manual recount, that would be used by the Tribunal as basis on whether they would proceed with the recount on all protested areas.
The PET brought in revisors and three commissioners to go through the clustered ballot boxes from the 2016 elections.