FORMER senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the counter-protest of Vice President Leni Robredo for failing to pay the protest fee on time.
Marcos, through his lawyer George Garcia, said the high court acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal should dismiss Robredo’s counter-protest since she failed to settle the first installment of P8 million out of the P15.44-million fee required of her by the tribunal.
Marcos cited Rule 34 of the 2010 PET Rules saying “if a party fails to make cash deposits or additional deposits herein required within the prescribed time limit, the Tribunal may dismiss the protest or counter-protest or take such action as it may deem equitable under the circumstances.”
Marcos said instead of paying the first installment on April 17, Robredo, through her lawyer Romulo Macalintal, filed a manifestation asking the Tribunal to make a clarification on the fees that Marcos must settle and hold in abeyance the payment required of her for the 8,042 counter-protested clustered precincts.
Robredo was ordered to pay P8 million for the first installment and P7.43 million for the second.
She said Marcos should be made to pay P185 million and not P66 million since in his pleading he asked the PET to secure the protection of the election results
in the 92,509 clustered precincts out of the 369,138 established precincts used in last year’s national and local elections.
Marcos beat the deadline by posting P36.02 million as his first installment with the second amounting to P30 million to be paid on or before July 14 this year.
“In view of the failure on the part of the protestee/counter-protestant to pay the first tranche of the cash deposit for her counter-protest within the deadline set by this Honorable Tribunal, protestant Marcos is now constrained to move for the immediate dismissal of the counter-protest in accordance with Rule 34 of the 2010 Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal,” Marcos said.
He cited two decisions in the election cases Perla Garcia vs House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and Rep. Harry Angping and Bienvenido William Lloren vs. Commission on Elections and Rogelio Pua Jr. in which the high court upheld the summary dismissal of the cases for failure to make the required cash deposits within the prescribed time limit.
“Guided by the foregoing, the dismissal of the counter-protest in this case is therefore warranted given the failure on the part of the protestee/counter-protestant Robredo to pay the required cash deposit within prescribed time limit of this Honorable Tribunal,” Marcos said.
Marcos also assailed Robredo’s move to file the manifestation as another dilatory tactic, especially since there was no issue as the cash deposit required to be paid by her.
“Protestant Marcos finds it quite ironic that Robredo would ask for the deferment of the payment of her cash deposit even though she had already expressed her conformity and willingness to pay the same in her manifestation with urgent ex-parte omnibus motion,” Marcos said.