Electoral tribunal readies partial ruling on VP poll protest

The Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, granted on Wednesday the petition of Vice President Noli de Castro and former Senator Loren Legarda for the partial determination of the electoral protest filed by the latter. The court gave the go-signal for the release of the results on the revision of ballots in Cebu and the re-canvassing of election returns from Lanao del Sur. Legarda, who run under the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP), placed second in the vice presidential race in the May 2004 elections. The tribunal ordered the two parties to meet with the clerk of court on July 6 for the preliminary conference of their petition. The court also suspended revision proceedings of the ballots from Pampanga province. In a two-page joint motion filed by the lawyers of de Castro and Legarda on Monday, they said the revision could resume when the tribunal has made a “partial determination" of validity of Legarda’s electoral protest. De Castro and Legarda also asked the High Court to suspend the ongoing revision of ballots from Pampanga and excuse them from submitting the names of their respective regular and alternate revisors for the additional 25 revision teams as required in the PET’s order on June 20. On June 13, the camp of de Castro asked the PET to determine the validity of the election protest filed by Legarda to expedite the resolution of latter's protest. De Castro said the bulk of his 800,000 lead votes came from Cebu and that as of June 9, the revision of ballots from Cebu was 97 percent complete and is expected to be terminated anytime this week. He noted that his lead votes against Legarda have not been materially affected although Legarda objected to almost 90 percent of de Castro’s ballots. De Castro said the partial determination of the validity of election protest is allowed under PET rules. -GMANews.TV