EMBATTLED Senator Leila de Lima, facing investigation on her alleged involvement in the illegal drugs trade in New Bilibid Prison and graft charges before the Office of the Ombudsman, is also now facing election protest questioning her election as senator in the last May general elections.
This, after the Senate Electoral Tribunal started hearing the protest filed by former Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino, who placed 13th in the senatorial race in the May elections with just about 1.3-million votes behind De Lima.
The SET, composed of three Supreme Court justices and six senators, heard the case in a closed door preliminary conference on Thursday.
In his protest, Tolentino sought the nullification of the proclamation of De Lima as elected senator for allegedly committing election fraud.
Tolentino alleged De Lima cheated in the automated polls by manipulating electronic transmission of results.
“It [cheating] was with the electronic transmission. There probably was double transmission,” he said in an interview.
“If you saw the results, the margin of votes between the first place to (sic) the 12th place was only about 80,000 votes. But when it came to the 13th place, the margin became so big,” Tolentino added.
Tolentino likened his case to that of former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. who lost in the vice presidential race to Leni Robredo and also filed a poll protest with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
Asked what evidence he would submit to the SET to substantiate his allegation, Tolentino cited documents and witnesses gathered by his camp.
De Lima, answering Tolentino’s protest, denied the charges and said she did not even have resources to fund her campaign.
However, Tolentino argued: “That’s not true because she reportedly had drug money that fueled her campaign… There should really be no narco-money involved in elections.”
Apart from the ouster of De Lima and his (Tolentino’s) proclamation as duly elected senator, the latter also hoped his protest would lead to reforms in the automated polls.
“We are hoping the counting of votes are done manually in the precincts and only the transmission of results is automated so the people will really see that their votes are counted,” he stressed.
After the first hearing, the SET, chaired by Senior Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, required Tolentino to submit a reply to De Lima’s answer in five days.
Tolentino filed a petition before the SC last May seeking to stop the proclamation of the bottom three winners in the senatorial race, citing the same allegation of electronic fraud.
But it dismissed the petition for being moot and academic after the proclamation of De Lima and other winning senators.
Tolentino had wanted the high court to order the Commission on Elections to open the automated election system to forensic audit and investigation on what he branded as “unauthorized manipulation” made by system provider Smartmatic.
He said he expected to join the winning 12 senatorial candidates after highly placing in surveys leading to the polls and being endorsed by the influential Iglesia Ni Cristo, but was surprised why he was stuck in 13th place in the canvass.