Robredo calls for calm, says cheating allegations unfair

Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo on Tuesday called for calm as the race for the second highest position in the land remains a close fight between her and Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. 

Robredo faced the media Tuesday afternoon at her campaign headquarters in Quezon City as she continues to keep the lead with a slim margin of over Marcos, who had initially led the partial and unofficial count.

“Hindi po tayo magsasabi na nandaya ang iba, hindi po tayo magsasabi na talo ang iba. Ang hinihingi lang po natin, sana po huminahon tayo. Hintayin natin yung official na count ng Comelec,” she said. 

Robredo made the appeal as the camp of Marcos asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to stop its unofficial count of election results. 

Robredo, the running mate of Liberal Party (LP) standard bearer Manuel “Mar” Roxas II who had earlier conceded, said it was unfair for the camp of Marcos to insinuate that there was cheating done to take the lead from him.

“It’s unfair na gumawa nang ganung allegation na hindi kaya ma-substantiate...Ang pagpapatigil ba, may allegation nang pandaraya kasi kung may allegation, maraming accusations na nandadaya pero wala namang detalye,” she said. 

Robredo stressed that her camp never accused Marcos of cheating when they were consistently in second place during the first few hours of the unofficial count.

She said she hopes that precincts who have yet to transmit election results will be able to do so within the day.

As of 4:30 p.m., Robredo was still leading the partial and unofficial tally for vice president with 13,605,015 votes.

She was closely followed by Marcos with 13,394,086. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, meanwhile, had 5,545,739.

Senators Francis Escudero and Antonio Trillanes IV have conceded. —ALG, GMA News