‘Political suicide’ if Bongbong accepts Cabinet post —poll lawyer

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. will sabotage his chances of winning the electoral protest that he plans to file against Vice President-elect Leni Robredo if he accepts a Cabinet post under the Duterte administration, her lawyer said Monday.

Atty. Romulo Macalintal said Marcos’ openness to become a Cabinet Secretary after the one-year ban on the appointments of defeated candidates is an admission he lost to Robredo.

“The ‘one-year ban’ applies only to election losers. Thus, for Marcos to wait for it is an acknowledgment of having lost in the 2016 election for vice president,” Macalintal said in a statement.

Marcos said over the weekend that he was open to taking a Cabinet post after the one-year ban lapses but clarified that he was not offered any position by President-elect Rodrigo Duterte during their meeting in Davao City on June 10.

The senator lost by 263,473 votes to Robredo in the vice presidential race. He said he will file a poll protest against the Vice President-elect before the end of the month.

Duterte had said that he was "non-committal" on giving Robredo a Cabinet post because he did not want to hurt Marcos.

Abandonment of protest

Instead of considering a Cabinet position under the Duterte administration, Macalintal advised Marcos to focus his attention solely on his election protest, especially if he believes he was cheated in the vice presidential contest.

The lawyer said it would be a “political suicide” for Marcos to accept a Cabinet position while his election protest is pending because it will weaken his chances of winning the case.

“He (Marcos) would spend close to P100 million for his protest, which will eventually be dismissed since the consequence of accepting said Cabinet post is abandonment and withdrawal of his election protest for VP post,” he said.

If Marcos accepts a Cabinet post, Macalintal said his electoral protest could suffer the same fate as the case filed by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago against former President Fidel Ramos after the 1992 national elections.

The Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) dismissed the case because Santiago ran and assumed office as senator in 1995 while her protest was pending.

In its decision, the PET held that Santiago’s election protest “has been rendered moot and academic by its abandonment or withdrawal by (Santiago) as a consequence of her election and assumption of office as Senator and her discharge of the duties and functions thereof.”

Macalintal, who is a lawyer of Robredo, clarified that he is issuing the statement not as a lawyer of the incoming vice-president, but as an election lawyer.

Sought for comment, Marcos' election lawyer George Garcia dismissed Macalintal's statements as "presumptions."

"We should not be engaged in presumptions, much less fear that which exist only in the mind," Garcia said in a text message.

Pressed to clarify, he said Santiago's case was different from Marcos' because the former was elected as a senator.

He added that Marcos has not yet actually decided if he will accept a Cabinet position in the Duterte administration. —ALG, GMA News