Robredo lawyers: Bongbong’s plea for decryption, printing of ballot images premature

The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo has asked the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to deny the request of former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. for the decryption and printing of ballot images from the clustered precincts subject of his poll protest.

In opposing Marcos' plea, Robredo's lawyers said on June 14 that the motion to decrypt the ballot images is premature since Rule 37 of the PET Rules provides that such remedy is allowed only when the integrity of the ballot boxes and their contents had not been compromised and not preserved.

"Clearly, the motion is premature," the comment stated.

Robredo's camp said the PET has yet to resolve her motion for reconsideration on whether or not Marcos' protest complied with the "strict requirement" of PET Rule 17 that an election protest must provide "detailed specification of the acts or omissions complained of showing the electoral frauds, anomalies, or irregularities."

Also pending for resolution is the issue on whether or not the ballot boxes should already be brought to the tribunal for recount purposes, the vice president's lawyers said. 

"To allow protestant [Marcos] to decrypt and print all ballot images from the secure digital (SD) cards from the entire 36,445 protested clustered precincts will practically grant his prayer for the judicial recount and revision of ballots, which, as stated, is still an issue to be resolved," the comment read.

They also said the motion was "practically giving" Marcos a "chance to fish for evidence, if not totally confused on the remedy he wants to pursue; whether actual revision of ballots or merely decryption of ballot images."

Robredo's counsel, Romulo Macalintal, also wondered how Marcos would pay for the "tremendous and huge cost" of decrypting the ballots. Macalintal said the estimated cost to decrypt one clustered precinct alone is P6,000 which means Marcos will need a total of P218.67 million for to decrypt ballots from all 36,445 clustered precincts.

Marcos' protest and Robredo's counter protest assail the election results in 47,263 clustered precincts nationwide.

Specifically, Marcos questions the results in 39,221 clustered precincts -- 36,445 of which are for manual count and judicial revision, while the remaining 2,756 for the annulment of poll results.

Robredo, on the other hand, assails the results in 8,042 clustered precincts.

Marcos lost to Robredo by just 263,473 votes in the May 2016 election, making it the closest vice presidential contest since democracy was restored in 1986. — RSJ/KVD, GMA News