Filtered By: Topstories
News

Robredo allies ask Comelec to uphold 25% shading threshold


 

Supporters of Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to allow the 25-percent threshold for ballot shading amid the ongoing manual recount of 2016 votes for vice president.

In her report on Balitanghali, GMA News' Tina Panganiban-Perez said Robredo allies, led by former Commission on Human Rights chairperson Etta Rosales and Sister Mary John Mananzan, wrote a letter asking Comelec commissioners to put forth conscience, integrity and love for country in ensuring a proper recount procedure takes place.

The group went around the Comelec main office in Manila to have their letter received by the poll commissioners, but they were only able to speak with newly appointed Comelec commissioner Socorro Inting.

Inting was quoted as saying in the report that the matter will be brought up during the Comelec en banc session later in the day.

Activist Fr. Robert Reyes pointed out that Robredo filed a motion for reconsideration (MR) last April 19 as a second attempt to convince the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to affirm the applicability of a 25-percent threshold.

In denying Robredo's first plea filed a week earlier, the PET cited Comelec Resolution No. 8804, as amended by Comelec Resolution No. 9164.

Rule 15, Section 6 of Resolution No. 8804 states that any shading less than 50 percent shall not be considered a valid vote.

According to the report, Reyes questioned the need to amend a Comelec resolution and indicated somebody may have influenced it.

The PET had also found Robredo's claim of a "systematic reduction" of her votes "without basis and shows a misunderstanding of the revision process."

Robredo's camp filed both motions in the midst of a manual recount of over 5,000 votes in the vice presidential race in three pilot provinces chosen by former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., who questioned Rebredo's victory in the 2016 elections. —Margaret Claire Layug/KBK, GMA News

Tags: lenirobredo
LOADING CONTENT