SC junks senator’s plea to recover ₧3.3-million electoral protest fee

THE Supreme Court has junked the plea of Sen. Francis Tolentino to recover the P3.3-million payment he made with the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) in connection with the election protest case he filed in 2016 against Sen. Leila de Lima.

In a 21-page decision penned by Associate Justice Jhosep Lopez, the SC affirmed the resolutions issued by SET in 2019 denying Tolentino’s petition.

Tolentino was directed to pay the amount as a condition for the grant of his request to preserve the equipment related to his election protest that initially consisted of 45 vote counting machines (VCMS) and six consolidated canvassing system (CCS) laptops, and later on added additional 106 VCMS and SD cards.

However, on October 3, 2018, Tolentino filed a motion for return of payments because despite paying the sum, he never enjoyed ownership of the said machines and equipment.

He noted the equipment remained in the custody of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and he could not even access them without the poll body’s permission.

The senator also sought to declare as invalid and unconstitutional Section 6.9 of the AES contracts between the Comelec and Smartmatic-tim.

He insinuated that Section 6.9 of the AES Contracts constitutes an obstruction to the free access of litigants engaged in an election case as it imposes a retention cost, which is equivalent to the cost of the machines and equipment.

He postulated that this requirement is financially cumbersome to litigants and also discriminatory.

In addition, he argued that Section 6.9 of the AES is unconstitutional as it supposedly bestows upon the Comelec the sole discretion whether or not he should shoulder the costs.

The SET junked Tolentino’s motion on February 21, 2019.

In ruling against Tolentino, the Court found no merit to his argument that by paying the retention costs, which is equivalent to the entire cost of the election machines and equipment; he became the owner of said equipment.

The court noted that the payments made by the petitioner did not cover the full cost of the election machines and equipment.