Marcos asks SC to resolve election protest in 2019
Credit to Author: JOMAR CANLAS, TMT| Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 16:48:01 +0000
The camp of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal, to investigate all concerned chairmen and members of the Board of Election Inspectors who served in the provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Marcos filed his consolidated reply with urgent motion to resolve his omnibus motion seeking a ruling from the electoral tribunal on his poll protest within the year.
Three years have lapsed since the poll protest was filed. On Tuesday, the Marcos camp marked the 1,000th day of the filing of the protest.
Marcos expressed optimism that he could still win the protest against Vice President Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo even with just three years or halfway the contested term.
George Erwin Garcia, lawyer for Marcos, said they were hopeful that the electoral tribunal would be able to resolve the case within this year or before Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin retires in October.
Garcia said whatever the ruling of the tribunal would be, they would respect it, but what they were asking is for it to expedite the case.
“If the tribunal rules that [Robredo] really won the race, then we have to accept. But if it decides that we really won, then they should also accept. We are in a democracy and whatever the outcome of this case will be should be accepted by both parties,” he added.
Marcos asked the electoral tribunal to “grant the omnibus motion” and to act on its motion to conduct technical examination in precincts in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and Basilan.
“It is most respectfully prayed of this honorable tribunal to direct the Voters’ Identification Division of the Comelec to conduct a technical examination on the signatures and or thumbprints appearing on the Voters’ Registration Records (VRR) and the Election Day
Computerized Voters’ List with Voters’ Records (EDCVL) of the entire 2,756 protested clustered precincts of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and
Basilan in connection with the May 9, 2016 national and local elections,” the document stated.
Garcia said he believes that although the electoral tribunal has not yet finished the revision and appreciation of votes in three pilot provinces in their protest — Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental — the case could still be resolved sooner once the tribunal shall proceed to the second part of the protest that sought technical examination of votes from the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan.
He asked the electoral tribunal to subpoena relevant documents in connection with the technical examination conducted in a separate election protest filed by ARMM gubernatorial candidate Sakur Tan against ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman.
The former Sulu governor said 80 percent of the voters in the ARMM were “fake.”
“The first cause of action on the pilot provinces is about the results of the counting of the machines, while the second action in the ARMM provinces involves voters who were unable to vote and pre-shading of ballots,” Garcia said.
The first recount covers three pilot provinces — Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental — covering a total of 5,418 clustered precincts.
The tribunal shall now rule on whether to proceed with the recount in a total of 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities identified in Marcos’ protest.
In his protest, Marcos assailed the election results in 39,221 clustered precincts — 36,465 of which he pays for the conduct of manual count and judicial revision, while the remaining 2,756 he prays for the annulment of election results.
Based on Commission on Elections data, the 39,221 clustered precincts are composed of 132,446 precincts.
Marcos, who lost to Robredo by 263,473 votes, accused her of “massive electoral fraud, anomalies and irregularities” such as pre-shading of ballots, pre-loaded Secure Digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning VCMs [vote counting machines], and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of Vice President.
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