The Supreme Court, acting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has dismissed the electoral protest of former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against Vice President Leni Robredo over his election defeat in 2016.
In a press briefing, Court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the 15 PET members unanimously resolved to dismiss the entire electoral protest filed by Marcos for lack of merit.
The PET also dismissed the counter-protest filed by Robredo against Marcos.
But Marcos' camp, in an interview on Teleradyo, said the fight is not yet over, as they could still file a motion for reconsideration.
“Whatever the decision is, we will face it. But it does not mean that we will just bow down to it. We will continue our fight until 2022,” Marcos’s lawyer and spokesman Vic Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez earlier said the PET only unanimously voted to dismiss their second cause of action, which was the manual recount and judicial revision.
“However, as to the issue on how to proceed with our third cause of action which is the annulment of votes in Mindanao, the tribunal has yet to decide on the matter,” Rodriguez said.
In a press briefing, Robredo said the truth prevailed. The Vice President said she was relieved that the magistrates voted unanimously in junking the electoral protest.
“The true decision from the 2016 elections was upheld. Since the beginning, I have said that truth would prevail until the very end,” she said in Filipino.
The electoral tribunal’s decision came just few months after Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the justice assigned to the case, denied the petition for inhibition filed by the Marcos camp, which accused him of being biased and of intentionally delaying the resolution of the case so that it would end up moot and academic with the coming of the 2022 national elections.
Leonen was also a subject of an impeachment complaint filed before the House of Representatives for the delay in the resolution of cases assigned to him.
The Marcos camp denied any involvement in the filing of that impeachment complaint.
In 2016, the Commission on Elections declared Robredo the winner of the vice-presidential race, after she received 14,418,817 votes, which was 263,473 votes more than the 14,155,344 votes that Marcos received.
Marcos filed an election protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that t Robredo had cheated in the automated polls.
In his election protest, Marcos cited three causes of action – first, that Automated Elections System (AES) was compromised, hence, the integrity of the AES cannot be relied upon to declare a legitimate winner; the second required the revision or manual recount of the actual ballots to determine the votes cast in all the 36,465 protested clustered precincts while the third cause of action sought the annulment of election results for the vice presidential position in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan, on the ground of terrorism, intimidation and harassment of voters as well as pre-shading of ballots in all of the 2,756 protested clustered precincts in the areas.
The PET dismissed Marcos’ first cause of action for being “meaningless and pointless.”
After revision and re-appreciation of ballots from three provinces chosen by Marcos, particularly Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental, involving 5,415 precincts, the PET found Robredo’s lead over Marcos widened by some 15,000 votes.
Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguiao, who was then assigned to handle the election protest, submitted the report to PET on Sept.r 9, 2019.
A lawyer for Robredo, Romulo Macalintal, said they had yet to receive a copy of the Supreme Court decision.
The Palace on Tuesday said it respects the Supreme Court decision.
“That is the decision of the Supreme Court. We respect that,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a press conference in Davao City on Tuesday.
“We respect also that the camp of former senator Bongbong Marcos has a further remedy of moving for reconsideration,” he added.
Roque said Marcos still has an option to file an appeal on the latest Court decision that affirmed Robredo’s victory in the 2016 vice presidential race.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been critical of Robredo, has made no secret that he supports Marcos.
In 2018, he said he would resign if Marcos won the electoral protest and became vice president, enabling him to take the top job under constitutional succession rules.
Duterte's election in 2016 was a boost to the Marcos family as the government gave the ex-president's remains a hero's burial and publicly floated the idea of winding down the hunt for his hidden wealth.
Chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said all sides should respect the decision.
“The Presidential Electoral Tribunal has spoken. It behooves everyone to abide by it. And so we must,” he said.
He said the unanimity of decision by the PET appeared to validate Robredo’s win on the basis of law and of the evidence presented before it by both parties.
“There is always another election to vindicate one’s loss or validate forever one’s rejection by the voting population,” he added.
Panelo also appealed to Marcos supporters, as well as those who voted for the losing candidate to accept the verdict.
“We have to abide by the precepts of democracy. We cannot be blinded by our personal biases for a particular candidate. That is how democracy works. The minority must submit and concede to the majority,” Panelo said.
Liberal Party president Senator Francis Pangilinan welcomed the decision but said they wished the matter had been resolved sooner.
He said the ruling affirmed their stand there was no cheating in the last elections.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said that he, “together with the more than 14 million Filipinos who voted for Vice President Leni Robredo in 2016” were pleased with the decision.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said the PET fulfilled its mandate without bias and based its decision on the evidence that was presented.
Lawmakers in the House on Tuesday welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court.
"The unanimity of the decision speaks volumes and should put to rest any doubts as regards her victory in the May 2016 elections," said Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. of Ako-Bicol, chairman of the House committee on constitutional amendments.
Two members of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives, Reps. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna and Sarah Elago of Kabataan said the PET decision was a "long-awaited, much-welcomed decision."
"It is high time that this issue be put to rest as the next elections are just almost a year away. This is also a welcome decision so that Vice President Robredo can concentrate more on her work and not be pestered by pretenders to the vice presidency," said Zarate, a deputy minority leader. With AFP
