‘President hands off on Marcos poll protest’

President Rodrigo Duterte will keep his distance from the election protest filed by former senator and losing senatorial candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against incumbent Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo.

In a press conference in Ilocos Norte, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said the President wants to exercise separation of powers since the Supreme Court, a judicial branch of government, is sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

PET is currently hearing Marcos’ petition to invalidate Robredo’s victory in the 2016 vice presidential derby, on the ground of an electoral fraud. Roque said Duterte would be “hands-off,” noting that the President is confident that the high court would be impartial in handling the election protest filed by Marcos.

“The President is a lawyer and he knows that we have the so-called separation of powers. The Supreme Court is hearing the case while they are sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal,” he said.

“So the President is hands off if it’s beyond his jurisdiction. It is the Supreme Court’s mandate and he is expecting that the Supreme Court will do everything to resolve this electiom protest,” Roque added.

Marcos lost to Robredo in the May 9, 2016 elections by a slim margin of 263,473 votes.

On June 29, 2017, Marcos filed an electoral protest, questioning the poll results that proclaimed Robredo as winner. Duterte has been outspoken about his close ties with the Marcos family.

Despite this, the President refused to meddle in the former senator’s pending petition against Robredo.

On Jan. 10, the PET said it would keep the original copies of the ballot images event after it required Marcos to pay for the copies and all costs for the decryption.

The tribunal, in its resolution, said that although Marcos was allowed to get the photocopies or soft copies of the decrypted ballot images, he should pay once more for the incidental costs for securing the same.

Marcos’ camp earlier revealed a “solid and incontrovertible” evidence of massive fraud during the 2016 national elections.

It presented photocopies of “shocking” and “highly questionable” ballot images from Camarines Sur and Negros Oriental, which formed part of the pilot provinces in his election protest. /