Miriam: PNoy admin ‘manufacturing numbers’ for Leni Robredo

Losing presidential candidate Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Wednesday accused the administration of President Benigno Aquino III of “manufacturing numbers” in connection with the lead of Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo over her running mate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the vice presidential race.

“The roller coaster ride of vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. invites comparison with a garrison state. In such a state, the authoritarian government feels free to manufacture numbers as they are needed,” Santiago said in a statement sent to reporters.

Santiago specifically cited the sudden surge of Robredo in the poll surveys a few days before the May 9 elections.

“I find it astounding that Marcos should have led in the vice-presidential surveys for many months, until the penultimate month, when suddenly the administration could jump up survey results to finally overtake him,” Santiago said.

“This is an eventuality that will cause the peoples of the democratic world to shake their heads and question the values of the society it produced,” Santiago added.

Marcos had been topping pre-election surveys of Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia for the past two months until Robredo overtook Marcos in the rankings by two percentage points in a Pulse Asia survey commissioned by ABS-CBN released on May 4.

Marcos, however, regained the lead on a Pulse Asia survey released on May 7 but only by a point from Robredo which made the two in a statistical tie in the top spot.

Marcos on Friday last week said there is a possibility that the pre-election surveys are being manipulated to establish a “fake trend” as part of the administration’s plan of securing Robredo’s victory at all costs.

Marcos said this is in line with the administration’s plan of having the winning presidential candidate Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte ousted through impeachment and replaced by Robredo.

On Tuesday, Marcos said that the alleged "Plan B" is in full swing.

Robredo, for her part, said that Marcos should substantiate his allegations.

Reacting to Defensor's allegation, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said, "Comelec is fully responsible for overseeing the automated election system and the executive branch has no part in this process."

Santiago, meanwhile, is yet to issue a statement regarding her standing in the Commission on Elections’ partial and unofficial quick-count of votes.

Santiago is ranking last among the five presidential candidates with only 1,415,920 votes as of 11:45 a.m. Wednesday as compared to the winning candidate Duterte who already garnered 15,840,605 votes.

Meanwhile, the race between Robredo and Marcos remains tight with the former garnering 13,951,352 votes as of 11:45 a.m. while the latter got 13,719,659 votes.

Bongbong thanks Miriam

In a separate statement, Marcos thanked Santiago for standing up on his claim of irregularities in the vice presidential race.

“I thank my presidential running mate, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago for her statement in support of the concern we raised earlier on the apparent manipulation of survey results in a bid to mislead the people into believing a supposed last-minute surge in the popularity of administration candidates,” Marcos said.

“We all know Miriam for her intelligence, integrity, independence and courage. And so when she speaks, we should listen,” he added.

Marcos maintained that the alleged manipulation of pre-election surveys is a prelude to the administration’s supposed plan of rigging the results of the elections.

“As we warned earlier, this could be part of a plot to mask efforts to rig election results,” Marcos said.

Marcos reiterated that the partial and unofficial quick count of the Comelec runs contrary to exit polls of the Social Weather Stations and other transparency groups, wherein he supposedly got 34.9 percent of the votes compared with Robredo’s 32.2 percent.

“The results of the ongoing unofficial quick count for the Vice Presidential race, which ran counter to independent exit polls and our internal surveys, give substance to our concern,” Marcos said. — with Kathrina Charmaine Alvarez/ALG/RSJ, GMA News