VP Robredo to appeal PET ruling on VP poll protest

The camp of Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo on Friday said they will appeal to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) the resolution of the Supreme Court (SC) that denied her motion to dismiss the poll protest filed by former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (Photo: Leni Robredo/Facebook)

MANILA—The camp of Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo on Friday said they will appeal to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) the resolution of the Supreme Court (SC) that denied her motion to dismiss the poll protest filed by former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Romulo Macalintal, the Vice President’s lead counsel said they will use their constitutional rights to file the motion for reconsideration (MR) before the end of this month.

Macalintal refused to reveal his punches in his appeal but claimed that the PET resolution did not reflect the validity of Marcos’ claims of fraud in the May 2016 election.

He said the resolution has jurisdiction over the case and the protest was sufficient in form and substance, taking into account the narrations of “ultimate facts” on the alleged irregularities and anomalies in the contested clustered precincts.

According to Macalintal, the electoral protest would still go through the lengthy process of revision and recount of ballots, both of which he said might take two years to finish.

Marcos contested the results from 39,221 clustered precincts from 25 provinces and five cities whose votes his camp said, if either annulled or recounted, would be enough to overcome Robredo’s 263,000-vote lead.

The areas include Basilan, Maguindanao and Lanao Del Sur.

He claimed massive cheating had taken place during the election and stressed the existence of pre-loaded secure digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning vote counting machines, and an abnormally high unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of vice president.