Robredo asks PET to reconsider decision not to dismiss Marcos poll protest

Vice President Leni Robredo has asked the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to reconsider its decision allowing the poll protest of former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to proceed.

Filed last week, Robredo's legal counsel Romulo Macalintal said Monday that the motion for reconsideration to the PET's January 24 resolution argued that Marcos has failed to pinpoint irregularities in the conduct of elections in several areas and clustered precincts.

The PET had said it has jurisdiction over the case and the protest was sufficient in form and substance, taking into account the narrations of "ultimate facts" on the alleged irregularities and anomalies in the contested clustered precincts. 

However, Macalintal said that Marcos did not specifically point to poll irregularities the former senator claimed had taken place in 662 municipalities and component cities.

This is because the affidavits submitted pertain only to 57 municipalities and component cities, the lawyer said. 

"Ngunit ang gusto ni Mr. Marcos na idamay lahat," Macalintal said in a statement. 

Macalintal also insisted that the PET resolution did not reflect the validity of Marcos' claims of fraud in the May 2016 election. 

Macalintal previously said that the electoral protest would still go through the lengthy process of revision and recount of ballots, both of which he said might take two years to finish. 

Marcos claimed massive cheating had taken place during the election and stressed the the existence of pre-loaded secure digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning vote counting machines, and an "abnormally high" unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of vice president.

Marcos lost to Robredo by just 263,000 votes, making it the tightest vice presidential race in recent Philippine history. — RSJ, GMA News