Leni: Calida delaying SC ruling on shade limit

The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo accused yesterday Solicitor General Jose Calida of delaying the Supreme Court’s ruling on its petition to lower the ballot shading threshold in the manual recount for the May 2016 vice presidential race.

In a five-page opposition filed on June 29, Robredo, through her lead counsel Romulo Macalintal, urged the SC, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to junk the Office of the Solicitor General’s (OSG) third motion for extension to comment on her pending appeal to set the valid vote threshold for the manual recount of votes at 25 percent.

Robredo filed a motion for reconsideration on April 19, asking the PET to lower the threshold to 25 percent, which was supposedly set by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in a resolution.

Macalintal said there is no reason why the OSG, which he said is merely acting as counsel for Comelec, cannot comment on an issue.

With the PET already in possession of the Comelec resolution manifesting that the 25-percent threshold was used in the 2016 elections, Macalintal said the high tribunal could resolve the motion for reconsideration even without the OSG’s comment.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son and namesake of the late dictator, lost to Robredo by 263,473 votes in the May 2016 polls, which he claimed was marred by fraud.