No one will dare question poll results in future, Bongbong says after PET ruling

The camp of former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday slammed the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) after the tribunal refused to push through with Marcos’ third cause of action in his poll protest against Vice President Leni Robredo's 2016 victory.

Marcos questioned why the tribunal decided to dismiss their third cause of action as he also lamented that they spent P66 million on their election protest.

“If the PET was going to dismiss our election protest without hearing all the evidence, then why didn’t it dismiss our third cause of action from day 1?” Marcos said in an e-mailed statement sent by his spokesman, lawyer  Vic Rodriguez.

“Instead they made us pay 66 million pesos for the protest . . . made us wait for almost 5 years . . . made us believe that  the annulment was a separate, distinct and independent cause of action—only to decide the case without affording us due process?” he added.

The Marcos team said that the decision sets a "bad precedent," saying that "in the future, no one in their right mind would dare question the results of an election.  It is an expensive and time consuming exercise."

In a February 16 decision which was released on Monday, the tribunal did not give due course to Marcos’ third cause of action which called for the annulment of 2016 polls results for vice president in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao.

According to the ruling, Marcos failed to make substantial recovery of votes in pilot provinces that he himself designated. This means Robredo’s victory in the 2022 polls has been upheld. — BM, GMA News