To remove all doubt, let the VP recount begin
WHAT’S up with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET)? In the past few days it has been heavily criticized in social media for its alleged bias against former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, in his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
The criticism has been mainly focused on the magistrate in charge of the election protest, Supreme Court Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa – one of the last to be appointed by former President Benigno Aquino III – who has been accused of favoring the camp of Robredo. Marcos said that his legal team is considering filing a motion to oust Caguioa from the electoral tribunal, or at the very least, as the justice in charge of the poll protest.
The allegations of bias are serious and must be addressed by the Supreme Court, whose members comprise the PET. Criticisms of this sort reflect badly on the High Court, which is already suffering from lowered approval ratings and public distrust amid the impeachment hearing against Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno.
The Supreme Court, acting as the PET, must do everything it can to show that it is fair and impartial. Caguioa in particular should demonstrate to the public that even though he was appointed by Aquino – his classmate from elementary to college in Ateneo de Manila University – he can take an independent stance in the Marcos poll protest and convince all that he deserves to be an associate justice.
Caguioa would not want his integrity to plummet as fast as CJ Sereno, whose approval and trust ratings fell to a record low of 31 and 27 percent, respectively, as she garnered the worst rating among the top officials surveyed by Pulse Asia.
Public confidence in Sereno took hit a following revelations in the House impeachment hearings over her alleged violations of the Constitution, with details being provided by her fellow justices in the Supreme Court – Associate Justices Teresita de Castro, Francis Jardeleza, Noel Tijam, and retired Associate Justice Arturo Brion. Never before in our history has a sitting Chief Justice been so heavily criticized by her colleagues.
Next week, the House will resume its discussions on the other allegations in the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Gadon against Sereno, including charges of graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes. Sereno, who has refused to testify before the House justice committee, has denied the charges against her.
Meanwhile, Marcos has declared that he will not run for senator in the 2019 elections even if offered a spot in the senatorial slate of President Rodrigo Duterte’s party, PDP-Laban. “I will decline,” he said. “I’m determined to finish this protest.”
We admire Marcos’ determination to see his poll protest to the end as a matter of principle, as this means giving up other political opportunities such as being re-elected as senator or taking on a high-profile position in the Duterte cabinet.
But then Marcos believes he was cheated in the May 2016 vice presidential elections. Robredo, who was at that time a virtual unknown, won narrowly over Marcos, by only 263,473 votes, despite Marcos leading by as much as 1 million votes in the early vote counting.
Social media has long accused officials of Smartmatic – the Venezuelan supplier of the vote-counting machines – of vote manipulation as they changed the script in the transparency server after Marcos was shown leading in the counting. This was allegedly done in collusion with officials of the Commission on Elections, which was then headed by former Comelec chief Andres Bautista, recently forced to resign following corruption allegations.
Marcos’ criticism of the PET’s bias against him is long overdue. His legal team is too quiet especially when compared with Robredo’s loquacious lawyer Romulo Macalintal. The public deserves to know all the facts in this critical issue and the Marcos legal team’s muted response gives the other side the upperhand in the media war.
Whatever one may think of his father Ferdinand, the younger Marcos deserves a fair hearing in the electoral court. Besides, his charges against Caguioa are disturbing and smacks of partisanship that don’t belong in either the PET or the SC.
For instance, Marcos said that in April 2017 during the Holy Week when banks were closed, the PET gave him only two days to pay his P36 million protest fee or risk having his protest dismissed. But his oppositor Robredo did not pay on the deadline set by the PET. Instead, she was given an extension and until now she has not completed payment for her counterprotest.
Another example cited by Marcos of Caguioa’s alleged bias was when he ordered Marcos to produce 8,000 witnesses in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Basilan within a period of only five days, nonextendable. He said his team didn’t sleep just to be able to comply with the order but Caguioa merely deferred action on his resolution.
“It has been almost two years and we have not yet done a recount, not even a single ballot box has been retrieved. How can you say that it is correct for an issue as fundamental or basic as to the conduct of national elections to be kept hanging? The questions are still up in the air,” Marcos said.
Marcos is correct in saying that the very integrity of our elections is at stake here. For the sake of our democracy, let the recount begin. VP Robredo should welcome this recount if she is confident that she really won in the last elections. Otherwise, a cloud of doubt would always hang over her head.