The Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), unanimously voted to junk the election protest of former senator Bongbong Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos lost his bid for the vice presidency to Robredo by a heart-stopping 278,503 votes in the 2016 national elections where some 44 million Filipinos voted.
Marcos has filed an election protest to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal on June 29, 2016.
The Marcos protest is based on the following three causes of action:
First, the Certificates of Canvass used in proclaiming Leni were allegedly ‘not authentic.’ On Aug. 29, 2017, during the pre-trial conference, the PET dismissed this for ‘judicial economy and for the prompt disposition of this case.’
Second, massive frauds and irregularities were allegedly perpetrated in 25 provinces and five cities involving about 39,000 clustered precincts. Per the PET Rules, Bongbong identified three ‘pilot’ provinces namely Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.
The third cause of action, Bongbong asked for the annulment of all the election results in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan due to alleged terrorism, intimidation and harassment of voters, and pre-shading of the automated ballots.
However upon review and recount of ballows, Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa, the member-in-charge, reported that the lead of Leni over Bongbong ‘even widened from 263,473 to 278,506’ or by 15,033 more votes on August 14,2019.
