The camp of former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said that Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo should cease from making accusations harming the integrity of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).
Lawyer Vic Rodriguez, spokesperson of Marcos, said the vice president should stop accusing the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as PET, “of systematically reducing her votes and casting aspersions meant to debase its integrity.”
“Leni Robredo cheated her way to the Vice Presidency and in this ongoing manual recount and judicial revision, she is attempting to cheat the Filipino people again by trying to change the rules in the middle of the game,” Rodriguez said.
Marcos’ camp was reacting to Robredo’s motion for reconsideration, which seeks the application of a 25 percent threshold for vote validity during the ongoing recount for the 2016 vice presidential race.
Threshold pertains to what percentage of the vote should be shaded to be counted.
PET is currently applying the 50 percent threshold in determining the validity of votes.
In her motion filed Thursday, April 19, Robredo asked PET to follow the 25 percent threshold set by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for shading of ballots, citing the “interest of justice and fair play.”
Robredo also said that PET’s decision to apply a 50 percent threshold on validity of votes “has resulted to a systematic decrease in her votes.”
But the camp of the former senator said that the invocation of the 25 percent threshold is “erroneous.”
“The election case was filed by BBM (Marcos) June of 2016, and since then, jurisdiction of the case is with the PET and no other as provided by Article 8 of the Constitution,” Rodriguez argued.
“Since it is the Rules of the Tribunal that shall apply, her invocation of the 25 percent threshold rule is erroneous as it was made by the Comelec only on 6 September 2016, four months after the elections,” he added.
Marcos’ camp then claimed that “it is an obvious ploy on the part of the Comelec, then led by the impeached chairman Andres Bautista, to favor Robredo once revision process starts.”
The revision of ballots is being conducted in connection with Marcos’ electoral protest against Robredo, who won the 2016 vice presidential race with only 263,473 more than him. Marcos accused her of committing massive electoral fraud.
