Marcos to supporters holding vigil: Keep calm

As the manual recount of votes for the position of vice president draws near, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told his supporters to remain calm.

Marcos yesterday met his supporters who staged a three-day vigil outside the Supreme Court (SC) in Manila City since Wednesday.

Supporters staged the vigil thinking the recount would be held this week.

The SC, sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), earlier announced the manual recount of votes for the election protest filed by Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo has been rescheduled on March 19.

Marcos told his red-shirted supporters to remain calm.

“I feel your frustration. But let us remain calm. We have come this far and I promise you that we will not stop until every one of your votes have been counted. I promise you we will not stop until we have uncovered the truth of why there are square boxes instead of oval shadings. The truth is slowly coming out. We shall prevail,” he said.

According to reports submitted by Marcos’ retrieval team who accompanied the trucks that brought the ballots boxes to Manila, the third and last batch of ballot boxes – totaling 424 ballot boxes altogether – were unloaded in the SC gym at 11:30 p.m. of Feb. 1.

The following day, at 1:30 p.m., the office of SC Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa met with the lawyers and supervisors of Marcos and Robredo and handed them a “Projected Timeline of Activities” that contained information on the recounting of ballots.

As stated in the timeline, the recounting of ballots was reset to March 19 to give the PET time to “conduct and process psychological examinations” for its revisors.