MARCOS, ROBREDO CAMPS FACE OFF IN POLL HEARING
The Supreme Court, sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), on Tuesday started the preliminary conference on the election protest of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
The camps of Marcos and Robredo faced each other for the first time in a two-hour closed-door hearing which ended around 4 p.m. Tuesday.
The tribunal, composed of the 15 justices of the SC, has decided to set just one preliminary conference for the protest and counter-protest, citing Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules that allows adjustment in rules “to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal.”
Marcos and his lawyers were in attendance while Robredo was not around but was represented by her lawyers.
Marcos is contesting the results of 36,465 clustered precincts in 30 provinces and cities citing fraud under three main issues in his protest, namely the “flawed” Automated Election System (AES), the failure of elections in several provinces in Mindanao and the unauthorized introduction by Smartmatic’s Marlon Garcia of a new hash code (or a new script / program) into the Transparency Server of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on the day of the elections.
Robredo, vice presidential candidate of the administration’s Liberal Party, won the 2016 vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos who got 14,155,344 votes.
After the hearing attended by eight justices, the tribunal was expected to issue a ruling on the pending motions of the parties.
Before the start of preliminary conference, Marcos completed the payment of the P66.02 million required by the PET for his electoral protest against Robredo four days ahead of the July 14 deadline for the payment of the second installment.
Marcos’ lawyer George Garcia said they made the payment of PHP30 million to the Tribunal on Monday adding that most of the amount came from the former senator’s friends.
“He received support from his friends,” Garcia said adding that Marcos even sold a condominium unit to defray the cost of his electoral protest.
Last April, Marcos paid the first tranche amounting to P36 million, which his camp said came from contributions from supporters.
Robredo also earlier paid P8 million for the first tranche of the P15.43-million bond required by PET for her counter-protest against Marcos.
Her camp said she is set to pay the remaining P7.43 million before the Friday deadline set by the tribunal.
In a press conference after yesterday’s hearing, Marcos said he was pleased that the protest is moving.
“We’re happy to see na tuloy tuloy na ang proseso. Ang maliwanag ang mga justices ng tribunal they are very interested in proceeding to their arguments and finally to the revision of the counting of the votes kaya nagpapasalamat kami sa mga justice na para sa kanila, interesado din sila na mapabilis ang proseso, nang makita ng ating mga kaba- yayan ang naging bilang sa boto,” the former senator said.
The supporters of Marcos held a vigil in front of the Supreme Court along Padre Faura in Manila from Monday night until Tuesday afternoon to show their support.
For her part, Robredo’s lawyer Maria Bernadette Sardillo said the justices raised questions during the hearing but have not resolved yet the pending motions earlier filed by both camps.
Sardillo said that several justices raised concerns on the feasibility and practicability of a recount.
She also cited the comment made by another justice that it might be hard to reexamine the results in the vice presidential contest without considering the implications on the results in other key positions given that the elections were automated.