Akbayan to Supreme Court: No more reason to keep Marcos poll protest going

Akbayan Citizen's Action Party and various groups on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to dismiss former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.'s election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.

In a letter addressed to the court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), Akbayan, Akbayan Youth, Youth Resist, Center for Youth Advocacy and Networking, and Millennials PH said the case is "already ripe for a decision."

"We call on the PET to once and for all end Mr. Marcos' electoral fiction," they said in the one-page letter.

The groups said Marcos, who is contesting Robredo's victory in the 2016 elections, has failed to make a "substantial recovery" of votes from Iloilo, Camarines Sur, and Negros Oriental, the three pilot provinces he identified as having had election fraud.

After the manual revision and re-appreciation of ballots from these provinces, Robredo's lead over Marcos widened by over 15,000 votes.

Under PET rules, the tribunal may dismiss an election protest if it finds that the protestant will "most probably fail to make out his case" based on an examination of ballots from the pilot provinces.

Instead of dismissing the case then, the PET, citing due process, ordered Marcos and Robredo to submit their position on issues regarding Marcos' bid for the annulment of 2016 election results for vice president in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao.

Only two of the 13 justices who voted, then-Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, dissented.

"We believe that there's no more reason for the PET to keep this protest going. As the final arbiter of laws, the Supreme Court must ensure that all rules are followed to the letter," Akbayan and the other groups said.

"Prolonging this electoral protest does not benefit anyone except the Marcos family," they said, claiming that Marcos' candidacy for vice president was to pursue his family's attempt at "complete political rehabilitation."

"Each day that the final PET decision is delayed gives the Marcoses more opportunities to undermine the people's voice in the 2016 elections," the groups told the court.

The PET recently ordered the Commission on Elections to comment on a number of issues regarding Marcos' so-called third cause of action: the annulment of 2016 election results for vice president in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao due to alleged terrorism and fraud. —KBK, GMA News